


Seven Deadly Sins

by Writer207



Category: Black Friday - Team StarKid, The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Autistic Paul Matthews, But not as depressing as my other works, Friendship, I'm not good at tagging or summaries, It's going to be a wild ride, Multi, True Love, also severely insecure, but you knew that from the title, it's a little crazy at times, it's not going to be pretty, secret deadly fantasy world, seven sins, there's one wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 55,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23560132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer207/pseuds/Writer207
Summary: It was supposed to be a nice, peaceful, somewhat stressful camping trip.Just Paul and Emma with Tom, Tim, and Becky at the Hatchetfield nature reserve. Nothing special. But as Tom and Becky have become closer than before and Charlotte and Ted make their relationship known, Paul wants the same for him and Emma.His plans are thwarted, however, when a medieval knight shows up and kidnaps Emma, bringing her back to his realm. Now it's up to Paul and his friends to not only save Emma, but also to resist the dangers and trials of the deadliest road they must walk before they can get her back.
Relationships: Alice & Bill (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Becky Barnes/Tom Houston, Bill & Paul Matthews, Charlotte/Ted (The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals), Paul Matthews/Emma Perkins
Comments: 38
Kudos: 59





	1. Hatchetfield Nature Reserve

**Author's Note:**

> You should probably know this isn't an original fanfiction idea. I am adapting the story from a German teen movie called "Pfad der Sieben Sünden" (translated: path of seven sins), made for the German version of a tv series called House of Anubis. I will also be taking elements from the original Dutch version of this movie, but this story is primarily inspired by and adapted from the German version. 
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoy the story.

After surviving the horror that was Black Friday, Tom Houston had decided to let Emma back into the family, to allow her more contact with her nephew. Emma had been delighted, and Tim already had an idea of what he wanted to do with his aunt; an idea that had to be postponed to spring break before it could be executed. That evening, during one of the first minutes of Saturday, Tim decided he wanted to go camping. And Tom agreed to it.

Tim had been patient for three months and a couple of weeks, counting down the days until spring break came. He wasn’t the only one; Emma also couldn’t wait for it. She had missed so many milestones, and she was more than ready to integrate back into the family she’d been avoiding while backpacking and seeing the world.

March 2019 couldn’t come soon enough. But once spring break came around, everyone was more than ready to get this vacation started.

Well, with one exception.

* * *

Paul couldn’t help himself.

He liked the idea of camping. He liked the idea of spending time with loved ones and roasting marshmallows on a campfire and doing all that kind of stuff that you did when you went camping. But that was the thing: he liked the _idea_. Actually going camping was a whole other story.

He didn’t dread it. That was too strong a word. But while he thought it would be fun, there was one part of him that he could not convince. There were several reasons.

Firstly, he was not so much a vacation person. Everyone he knew was inside Hatchetfield. Who cared about the outside world? And even then, he barely changed the environment around him; there were no weekend get-aways spent in Clivesdale (fuck Clivesdale), no adventurous canoeing on the lake, nothing that could break with his daily, weekly, monthly routine. He did not necessarily need to get away from it all every once in a while. He was more than content staying home and reading a book, watching a rented movie. Going camping totally destroyed the routine he’d built up.

Secondly, he was anxious about the people he’d meet. Sure, he had met Tom and Tim and had seen Becky just once, but that did not mean he wouldn’t be anxious. Yes, it may seem he easily made friends, that he could easily hold a conversation, but his nonchalance and friendliness hid crippling anxiety that would become all the more apparent around people he did not know, but who he would definitely learn to know. Had they remained strangers to him, nothing would’ve changed. Had they been lifelong friends, it would be alright. They were neither; they were new people in his life which he needed to spend time with if he wanted to spend time with Emma, and he needed to make a good impression because he did not want them to not like him or think of him as lowly or not a good fit for Emma, and just thinking of that got his anxiety skyrocketing.

Thirdly, he hadn’t really gone camping before. That might be an issue.

But he had made it and the Hatchetfield nature reserve was where they would stay for three nights.

Paul never understood why the nature reserve had been declared as such. There were much more beautiful and biologically diverse flora and fauna all over the States, so why pick a comparably tiny plot of land to protect? There had to be a reason, but Paul did not know what that was. To him, it was just a piece of nature. Nothing special, really.

Maybe it was the activities that made it special. There was enough room for about three hundred campers and a designated area for one hundred mobile homes on the border. Right next to it, the nature reserve started. It was almost exclusively forested, with the exception of the beach on the west, that attracted those kinds of people that liked to get their skin burnt in the hot sun. The nature reserve bordered the lake, which also made many water activities possible, such as jet skiing and other activities Paul was not looking forward to.

Then there was the locally famous wedding arch that had been placed on one of the forest’s paths in the early seventies. It was a popular wedding destination for the people of Hatchetfield, but it didn’t appeal to Paul. Then there were also rumors that strange things have been happening around the arch, but those were all debunked. It was just a fancy arch where people liked to get married if they needed a nearby ‘special location’ - so much so that it may not even be so special anymore.

Paul and Emma arrived without getting stuck in traffic or any other problems. Now the fun could begin. And Paul's anxiety levels were already rising beyond what they normally were.

He enclosed his right-hand thumb and only “okay” was on his mind when Emma drove on the parking of the nature reserve. Okay. This was it. No turning back now. Three nights in a tent. On the ground. In a sleeping bag, with no heating or air conditioner. And only self-cooked meals from a campfire. Or from the nearby restaurant.

Maybe he shouldn’t try to think about these things in a negative light. So he looked out of the window and tried to focus on whatever he saw. He saw the forest. Obviously. There were many commercial buildings; there was a Hatchetfield nature reserve museum (why did it need one?), a gift shop/antiquary (what a strange combination), a small hotel with about twenty rooms for those who didn’t like camping (couldn’t they have booked a room?), about three restaurants and some houses where the people lived that worked in these establishments.

And the tents. He could also easily spot the tents. It seemed that others had also decided to spend their spring breaks camping out next to the nature reserve.

Just great.

“Are you okay?” Emma asked him. She must have noticed he hadn’t said much when they drove and that he was clutching his right thumb - some sort of tic he’d developed the past few months, to be used when he did not want to bother Emma with his anxious rants or thoughts. She must have picked up on this, because he caught her glancing at his hands. He let go of his thumb and carefully put his hands in his pockets. And immediately turned them into fists, knowing Emma might see but would not notice the fists.

“I’m o… I’m fine.” It was hard not to let ‘okay’ slip from his mouth. “Couldn’t be better.”

“You look stressed,” Emma noticed. Paul nodded. He could not deny this.

“I am. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” He didn’t want Emma to worry about him. Really. she should be focused on having a good time with her family. Paul would and could take care of himself.

Emma nodded in response, but there was hesitation. Shit, she didn’t believe him. That wasn’t good.

“Let’s take our stuff and go,” Emma then said, unbuckling her seat belt. “Tim, Tom, and Becky are already here and have found a great spot.”

“Okay.” Great. She didn’t care. Or maybe she did and didn’t show it. Either possibility could be the reality, or maybe she was thinking of something else entirely. And what could that possibly be?

 _Just let it go._ You’re going to have a good time, you shouldn’t be so worried.

Paul followed suit and grabbed half of their camping materials. Well, it wasn’t Paul’s - most of it was Emma’s stuff from when she used to travel the world. It was easy to distinguish the used and proper materials from the brand new ones Paul had purchased at the very last second.

It was quite a heavy load to carry. At least Emma had been smart enough to pack most of it in a large backpack. Paul was carrying everything in his hands and balanced everything on top of one another. He looked rather clumsy, and he felt the same. It was his first time and it showed. And every twenty steps or so, something seemed to fall off of his pile. Okay, maybe not so frequently, but a lot of things did fall, some more than once. Luckily, he wasn’t carrying anything fragile and Emma was patient enough to stop him and pick up the item that had fallen, and even offered to carry some items that had dropped to the ground.

It was a relief and a great help. And also a small source of embarrassment. He should be the one offering to carry something of hers, not the other way around.

And the time. In reality, they must have walked for five minutes. To Paul, with laser focus on his stuff and trying not to drop anything, it seemed like an hour had passed by when he heard a liberating scream.

“Emma!”

Tim had spotted them. The kid waved with his arms and jumped up and down as if they wouldn’t be able to spot them if they didn’t do so. Emma fastened the pace; Paul tried to follow but had to slow down again because of everything he was carrying.

In the meantime, Emma had gone ahead and had reached Tim, giving him a long hug. It was nice to see how close they were, even though they hadn’t had much interaction with one another until 2018 came along.

They were talking while Paul came stumbling closer and dumping his stuff near the Houstons' tent. He had wanted to place it gently on the ground, but by then his tower was toppling and he just tried to place it on the ground without making a fool out of himself in front of Tom, Becky, and Tim. So much for a good first - or second - impression.

“Pat.” 

Paul jumped up. Tom had come to greet him while Emma and Tim walked back to their camping spot.

“Paul,” he corrected Tom and extended his hand towards him. “It’s good to meet you again.”

“Likewise,” Tom said. Either he shook the hand out of kindness, or because he felt obliged to with Emma watching him as well as Tim and Becky. Whatever the case was, Paul’s hand got squeezed a little too hardly. Was that an accident - did Tom have a firm handshake- or not? Again, Paul found himself.

“Hi,” Becky then said. “We didn’t get a chance to talk last time. I’m Becky, Tom’s girlfriend.”

She extended her hand towards him; she smiled, and Paul believed her to be more genuine than Tom was towards him. It might be her personality. It might also be her smile. Tom hadn’t smiled as widely as Becky was.

“Nice to meet you,” Paul responded and he shook her hand. He decided he liked Becky more than he liked Tom. 

“Do you need help with that?” Tom asked, looking at the two-person tent that Emma had brought. She had added her stuff to the disorganized pile that Paul had left. 

_No, we got this._ That’s what Paul had wanted to say. But Emma stepped in and agreed to it. Emma had experience and so did Tom. Paul felt he was only standing in the way, so he just stood aside, with his arms folded and his mind going every which way.

One moment, he was trying to figure out how Emma and Tom could so quickly set up a tent when it would’ve taken Paul literally a day, with the help of a manual. The next moment, what Becky had said floated around in his head - _Tom’s girlfriend._ She hadn’t been his girlfriend late November - Tom would have mentioned it - and based on whatever Emma had told them about the unfolding relationship, what had happened during Black Friday had brought them closer together. Apparently, Tom and Becky decided to start dating again just before Christmas.

It only took them one month to make it official. It shouldn’t bother Paul - they were happy, why should he care? - but he could not deny it did bother him. They made it official after one month; Paul and Emma had been together for, what, six months, and they still hadn’t put a label on it. Well, Emma didn’t want to for some reason, but knowing this made him anxious. Emma may not like the label, but it was a form of security for Paul. If he wasn’t Emma’s boyfriend, then what was he? A close friend? A friend with benefits? Or maybe something else entirely.

While his thoughts swallowed him, he let his eyes wander over the camping grounds. It was indeed a good camping spot. Maybe, he had no idea what would be a great spot. But he believed it might be; it was close to the beach (only a five-minute walk, so he learned) and right next to the entrance of one of the more popular routes through the nature reserve. It did mean they were further away from the main buildings, from the restaurants and gift shops, but based on what supplies Emma and Tom had packed, they wouldn’t be stepping in a restaurant so long as they camped there. Luckily, they were close to one of the many public toilets in the area, so he wouldn’t have to run far in case of an emergency.

And from the corner of his eye, he spotted an anomaly that he had not accounted for during this vacation. He had thought of and had come to terms (sort of) with everything that camping entailed. He had not thought of any outside forces that may disturb the peace he was trying to build into his first camping-experience. These outside forces, unfortunately, comprised Ted, Charlotte, Bill, and Alice.

Also, unfortunately, they had spotted him staring at them. And they were coming right towards him.

“Hey, Paul!” Ted yelled. Paul’s face paled - this vacation couldn’t get any worse.

“Who are they?” Becky asked. Neither she nor Tim or Tom knew who these people were.

“They are my colleagues.” He did not address Alice - it should be clear by her appearance that she was too young to be a colleague of Paul’s and that she was actually the daughter of one of them.

“Did you invite them over?” Emma asked him. When he looked at her to answer, he was taken aback that their tent was already standing. How quick were they? But Emma’s questioning look pulled Paul right back to reality.

“No, I didn’t,” Paul responded. He looked as the four approached. “I swear I didn’t know they were here.” Did she really believe he had invited them? That was not the case. Why, if he wanted to avoid stress, would he invite Ted?

“It’s okay,” Emma said, maybe so that Paul wouldn’t get all worked up about their presence.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Of course it was Ted who immediately led the conversation. “I thought you didn’t like camping.”

Emma frowned and looked at Paul. “What?”

He may not have told her that he did not like camping. On purpose. He couldn’t tell her after she’d told him so excitedly about the plans they’d made for the camping trip and then asked him to come along. Until now, he could get away with liking the idea and always thinking about the idea when she mentioned it. That would not be happening anymore.

“I don’t, but I’m trying out something new,” Paul said hoping it was convincing. It probably was not, but he could move on and pretend everything was okay while he was dying a little inside. “Emma invited me. This is her family. Well…” Tim was her family, while Tom was an in-law and he wasn’t quite sure what Becky was. “It’s complicated.” And that was the best way he could describe it. Luckily, the four seemed to just take the answer at face value. It was good to know that they didn’t want him to explain it if he didn’t want to.

“But what about you?” Paul then asked the group. “What are you doing here?”

“We come here every year,” Alice told him and Paul frowned when there came a pause. Was he supposed to say something?

“Really,” Bill said. “We come here each year during spring break. I told you this before, remember?” And he looked at Paul expectantly.

Paul did not remember. Bill had shared so much with Paul over the years that Paul could not remember all the tiny details that Bill had shared about his private life. Luckily, Paul had been in a similar position before, so he could answer immediately and appropriately.

“Right,” Paul said with feigned recognition. “Yeah, of course. You did say that.” Bill seemed to buy it. Good. The last thing he needed right now was for Bill to be disappointed at him.

Then, Paul turned his attention to the other duo that had unexpectedly shown up at the nature reserve.

“And what about you, Charlotte?”

“We came here for some peace.” She spoke softly. Calm. She wasn’t trembling and she smiled peacefully. The divorce really had changed her for the better. It was just unfortunate that she found her happiness with the loudest office worker in all of Hatchetfield, if not in the entire state.

“We really could use some peace and quiet,” Ted interjected. “You won’t believe what that idiot of an ex-husband had tried to do last week.”

Charlotte put a hand on Ted’s chest.

“That’s enough, Ted.” Ted got the hint and swallowed the words he would have otherwise spewed out. They probably wouldn’t be nice; the divorce had been messy. Sam had left Charlotte for some young thing who worked at Beanie’s, one of Emma’s colleagues. Now Charlotte was living with Ted and maybe this would change his behavior for the better as well. In the long run, of course, since it’s been a couple of months and his behavior hadn’t changed that much since they officially started dating.

Even Ted and Charlotte had made it official before Paul and Emma did. Another something to be bothered about.

“Okay,” Ted said. His attention quickly turned to the most exciting event of the year. “I never thought I’d live to see the day that you’d sleep in a tent out of free will.”

“Neither did I,” Paul answered truthfully, trying to hide his irritation. The longer Ted would be here, the more he would talk about it, the harder it would be for Paul to keep his calm or convince Emma that he really did want to be here.

“Listen, I’ve still got to do some stuff around here, so if you don’t mind, can you leave?” He tried not to make his words sound too annoying. He was lucky his colleagues knew his demeanor in these kinds of situations and did not mind. “Have fun around here.”

“You too, Paul,” Bill said.

Paul nodded. “Thanks.”

And Bill, Alice, Ted, and Charlotte left again and Paul breathed in relief. How could their presence stress him out so much? They were here, did it really matter that these people would be walking around here and that he’d see them from time to time? Was he that desperate to separate his work life (with Bill, Ted, and Charlotte) from his private life?

No, that couldn’t be it. But them being here should not change any of the plans they had made.

So far, they didn’t. Paul unpacked his sleeping bag and got it ready for tonight. Since the sun was already setting, they thought it would be a good idea to start cooking dinner. Emma took the lead once again, with Tom. Becky watched over Tom’s shoulder to make sure he wouldn’t do anything stupid while Paul tried to have a conversation with Tim. It was a shallow conversation, but it was one nonetheless. Paul believed he left a good impression on the kid.

Dinner was served. It was basic, but good. Paul almost dropped his plate but could catch it before any damage could be done. Everyone laughed. He didn’t know whether they laughed because it was a funny action or because they were laughing at his mistake. He did briefly and unconvincingly laugh with them before trying to eat everything as quickly as possible, to avoid a similar incident.

They talked. Emma and Tom talked about Jane and what the other had missed. Becky and Paul listened - they never had the pleasure of meeting Jane, but she did sound like a good person, a delight to be around.

Tim almost started crying when the conversation slowly evolved and came to the accident. Which Paul had brought up for some reason. Why did he think it was a good idea to bring it up in any context? Becky comforted him and Emma glanced at him. He could not interpret the gaze, but he believed this was her silently reprimanding him for his insensitive behavior. Tom’s gaze was much clearer - he did not like how Paul had brought it up. This may be the start of an uneasy friendship that would be held together solely because they both knew Emma.

In the meantime, Paul was confident his little group would stay away from Charlotte and Ted as well as Bill and Alice.


	2. Making plans

Of course, the three groups would not stay separated. It seemed the universe was hell-bent on making this time at the nature reserve a big anxious-ridden mess.

The day had started so well. He’d waken up at the usual moment and spent the next half an hour in his sleeping bag, staring lovingly while Emma was still fast asleep. Only when Tom came to wake them up did Emma grumpily respond. Paul did not let her know he was already awake; maybe she’d think it creepy he stared at her while she slept. That was not a good look. 

Breakfast consisted of a regular sandwich. The ladies needed some time to get ready and then they went off. The morning was spent walking around, discovering all the activities around the nature reserve and everything Tim wanted to do. That included canoeing on the lake.

Now, there were a lot of things that Paul liked, but there also were a lot of things that he did not like. Canoeing was one of the things that he did not like.‌ Or, rather, would not like - he had not yet tried this in his life, and seeing the others doing it did not incentivize him to do the same. He already was pushing the boundaries by being here, he was not going to break them. He would stay with both feet on land, did not want to get wet before they even had lunch.

But Tim really wanted to go canoeing, and Emma and Tom luckily wouldn’t shy away from it. From those two, Emma was more excited about it than Tom, who may just be glad that he would have to wear a life jacket.

Paul would not be all alone on the shore. Becky, too, preferred not to go out into the water. So while Emma, Tim, and Tom were ready to try to stay afloat in their canoes, Paul was mentally preparing himself for a conversation with Becky. It might be easier to talk to her than to Tom; she was just more likable and more of a stranger.

Paul did not get the chance to say more than ‘hi’ to the official girlfriend of Tom, because Ted and Bill spotted him and Ted just had to come by and say something. It was just Ted and Bill, though - it meant that Charlotte and Alice were either doing something together or spent their time alone. Which did not sound plausible, as the women had come here explicitly to spend time with their boyfriend and father.

“Are you going on the water?” Ted asked him. Paul shook his head.

“No, I’m not.”

“Great!” He then turned to Becky, who had no idea what was going on and must not be getting a great impression of Paul’s co-workers. “Can we borrow him for a second?”

There was a right answer, that including Ted already pulling Paul away from Becky. For whatever reason, they wanted to talk to him but did not want to

“Sorry,” he told Becky. He did not like to leave Becky behind, but he could not say no when Ted was literally pulling him away from the woman.

“It’s okay,” Becky said with a smile. Paul could not figure out what she tried to communicate with it. “I’ll stay here. You can go.”

An invisible weight was lifted from his shoulders. Becky didn’t mind, so he subsequently didn’t have to stress about it. Though Tom might not appreciate that he left his girlfriend all alone. But Becky said it was okay, so Paul left her and went with Ted and Bill, wondering why they needed to talk to him now and silently thanking them for saving him from a potentially awkward position. But first…

“Where are Charlotte and Alice?”

“They’re going to the bathroom,” Ted said dismissively. “It’s not about them. It’s about you.”

“Me?” And up went his stress levels. Ted said this, it could not be good.

“Yeah, you,” Ted said and he waited expectantly. He expected Paul to know why they would want to see him. It definitely wasn’t to have an amicable conversation or bickering, depending on the mood, as this was one of the few times they could get away from it. But Paul was clueless - he blamed his stress, but he would otherwise also have not known the reason.

“Why?” Paul asked.

“You’re on vacation!” Ted exclaimed as if that was the definitive answer. But that still was too broad of a reason and Paul would not be able to figure it out.‌ He’s on vacation, so that’s why this was about him. He would need some more information if he wanted to fully understand what the fuck Ted meant.

“I think what Ted means,” bill chimed in, “is that you’ve finally set a foot outside of the Central‌ Hatchetfield area and you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

Poor Bill, being dragged into this mess by Ted. But at least Paul now understood where Ted was going. Well, they weren’t wrong - Paul did not really know how to get out of the familiar area that was the center of Hatchetfield. Within that imaginary circle was his house, his workspace, his GP, the Beanie’s where Emma worked, the store where he got all of his groceries… and with his sometimes social tendencies, why would he ever need to leave that circle? Yes, Emma’s home was outside of the center, but that was only a small occurrence and he did not spend nearly as much time there than inside his familiar surroundings.

“So what’s wrong?” Ted then asked. Paul instinctively leaned backward, away from Ted.

“Nothing.”

Ted shook his head in disappointment.‌ In these situations, he could never fool Ted. Though Paul was never able to fool Ted - that man somehow had a sixth sense that told him whenever Paul was bullshitting to him.

“Don’t lie to me,” Ted said. “You were moping and trembling. Something’s definitely going on. So, what is it?”

Paul could not just stay silent and refuse to say anything. Ted would not allow it.

“It’s…” It’s an amalgamation of many different factors that, once brought together, turn Paul into an anxious mess. Things that only in this melting pot of a vacation destination could come together to create this mess.

But Ted expected an answer and Paul could, at that moment, not form coherent sentences or fully explain what exactly he was anxious.

“It’s Emma.”

It felt like a betrayal. Emma had nothing to do with anything, but his mind focused on her as the catalyst, the person in the center, the one who was being difficult. And honestly, Paul had no trouble with her preferences, but it was hard not to long for what Becky and Tom had - the certainty, the right name, the ability not to mull this over until there’s nothing left but a troubled mind.

And now Ted missed the bigger picture and was having a hard time understanding what Paul meant. Unfortunately, Ted did not just keep his mouth or ask for clarification. No, he immediately asked the first and possibly most important question on his mind when it came to relationships.

“Are you two fucking?”

Paul was expecting the question, but not the phrasing. It took him aback. He wouldn’t use that word. It was accurate, but it had this connotation that he did not want to give what he and Emma occasionally did; it sounded too brutal. Too hard. What they had, what they did, was more delicate and loving than Ted’s idea of sex and whatever he was doing with Charlotte.

“We are intimate,” Paul responded awkwardly.

Ted spread his arms in astonishment. “Then what’s the problem?”

Ted missed the point completely again. The sex was not the problem; why would it even be a problem for them? But of course Ted assumed it had something to do with the stress, an assertion possibly made based on his own experiences with women. Something’s wrong? Find the fault with the sex or the person you’re having it with.

“Emma…” Paul paused immediately. How to best put it into words without starting many sentences and leaving them unfinished? He took a couple of breaths. “She doesn’t want to put a label on what we have.”

“And that bothers you?” Bill asked in a more respectful tone than Ted had used previously. Paul nodded solemnly.

“I guess it does,” he said. He did not want to say it bothered him - that sounded like he thought it was a problem. And while it was, he did not feel like that was the right word. No, Emma’s decision… it hurt him. It made him uncertain. It made it easier for her to slip away if she wanted to, without having to be bound by a label. Paul respected it, but whereas having no label gave Emma the freedom she wanted, it only made Paul feel incredibly insecure in his not-so-well-defined relationship.

Ted did not grasp how hard this weighed on Paul. He had already given up on trying to understand Paul’s weird habits, his weird thoughts, his strange obsession with certain things that he didn’t need obsessing about, and vice versa. Hearing that not having that certainty bothered Paul, Ted could only roll his eyes.

“Oh, God, Paul!” He shook his head. “Let’s fix that.”

Paul looked at him, panicked. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was not going to end well. And based on the way Ted was dragging him along again, he was willing to bet that Ted was trying to ‘fix that’ as soon as possible.

“What, now?” No, that was bad. He hadn’t prepared for this!

“Why not?” Ted wondered. “It’s not like you’re planning to get in a canoe.”

Well, no. But he needed time to prepare. He needed to be in the right mindset, he needed to really want this (which should not be a problem), he needed to run through the options at least a gazillion times before he even was reassured to get into the situation. All things that Ted would not even consider.

“How can we…” Paul was interrupted by Ted, who shushed him.

“Tonight, you’re going to ask her to make it official.”

There was no turning back now. Even if he said no, Ted was already making plans in his head.‌ He had his mindset on it, so there was no talking him out of it.‌ And even if Paul managed to convince him to let it go, Ted would be so disappointed he would not be a great person to be around, for his grumpiness would destroy any kind of amicable mood.

“Now, don’t you worry about the logistics,” Ted continued. “we’ll figure something out.”

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Ted said. “All you need to worry about is getting her a gift. We’ll prep you for it.”

Now that was a game-changer in this sequence of changing plans. While Paul would usually like to plan out these kinds of things to the smallest details, this approach would have him stressed because it was supposed to be tonight and he had no time. If that were taken out of his hands, Ted would set up something that Bill could verify would be something that Paul would be comfortable executing.

That left him only one thing to take care of that neither Bill nor‌ Ted would be able to do for him: a gift, to give her whether she agreed to the labels or not.

But he was unfamiliar with the area surrounding the nature reserve and did not know where he should start looking.

“Just go to the beach,” Ted suggested. “There’s a lot of pretty rocks in there and she might like one of them.”

It was cheap. But above all, it was the easy way out. Just sauntering on the beach until he found a pretty rock was an easy solution. Way too easy for Paul.

“Or we could go to Barry’s,” Bill suggested. Immediately, it sounded more credible than going to the beach. But Ted did not seem to like the idea.

“The gift shop?” he asked.

“The antiquary,” Bill clarified. Ted rolled with his eyes and shook his head - he really did want to go to the beach. Paul only stared at him with a strong interest because at the moment, he had no idea what Barry’s was and what its history was. Bill noticed and helpfully gave an explanation.

“Barry was one of the people who originally lived here. When the city transformed this place into a tourist attraction, Barry refused to move out. They offered him all the money in the world, but he still refused. So they built around his house and eventually conceded by allowing that part of his shop was turned into the Nature Reserve gift shop.”

“You know this Barry, right?” Paul wondered. Bill had to know him, how else did he know about this extended history? Or was Paul just that oblivious to what could be a piece of common knowledge he missed out on because he never came around here?

“I’ve been coming here for the past twenty years and I always go to visit him,” Bill explained, “He’s a nice guy and he has a great collection. You’ll find something there for sure.”

“And if he doesn’t, we can still go to the beach,” Ted chimed in.

“Right,” Paul said, but he mentally shook his head. Going to Barry’s sounded more appealing than the beach - besides, Emma might take him more seriously if he came with something that he bought as opposed to something anyone randomly could find on the beach.

“So, Bill, lead the way.”

Bill nodded. “With pleasure.”


	3. Barry's Antiquary

The way to Barry's wasn't too long, but Paul could see the building from afar. It was a standout among the same styled houses, with their light walls and green roofs that tried to make it look like a holiday destination. Paul just believed they did not fit into the environment and that they were a little tacky when it came to style. Barry's gift shop and antiquary, on the other hand, was an old building. It was not made of brick, as the other buildings were, but from old wood that was only recently painted brown again. The roof was made from the same material and it was the only building that didn't have any extra floors. Immediately Paul felt more drawn to the wooden house, even though it looked scarier than the buildings surrounding it.

When they walked into the shop, Paul could feel how old it was in here. The wood floor panels creaked when they walked and the displays seemed old as well, each holding unique items. No two items were the same and many were as unique as they were strange.

Ted was looking around disinterestedly, while Paul was taking in all the details. This shop held history, had many stories to tell. On this side of the building, at least. On the other side, that was kept in a much better shape, was the gift shop. More tourists went to that side and bought items from those shelves. The people who ran this vacation business were trying hard to up their appeal so that Barry's side would lose the appeal. Luckily, there were still some people who were drawn to the quirky side of the business rather than the actual prefabricated retail side.

"Weird stuff washes on the shore a lot," Bill had explained to Paul when he looked at an old pair of boxing gloves that hung on display at the front of the shop. "People sell them to Barry and he sells them to tourists.”

"People sell them to Barry and he sells them to tourists."

"Only if they still are in good condition." From behind the counter came an older man who was smiling. It was an amicable genuine smile, and his eyes were trained on the customers. Though he looked especially at Bill, who started to smile at well.

"Barry."

"Hello, Bill," Barry greeted him. "How is Alice doing these days?"

"She's doing fine," Bill answered. "She's around here somewhere, but I'm sure she'll visit any day."

"That's good to hear," Barry said with a small nod. He then looked at the two customers that clearly were with Bill, but whom he hadn't had the pleasure to meet yet.

"Who did you bring with you today?”

"These are Paul and Ted." Bill pointed at them when he said their names. Paul politely waved and said hi, while Ted only greeted him back when he heard his name and then went back to doing whatever the hell it was that he was doing. 

"Nice to meet you," Barry said. "What are you looking for?"

Paul only later realized that the old man behind the counter was talking to him. He lifted his head and pointed at himself.

"Me?"

Barry nodded in confirmation.

"Oh, I, er..." Paul walked over to the counter so that he didn't have to shout or raise his voice and to make sure the man would hear it well enough. "I'm looking for a gift for my girlfriend."

Not yet. She still had to agree to this label tonight. Or tomorrow night. He should ask Ted if he absolutely had to ask her tonight because he would have more time to mentally prepare himself if it was moved to tomorrow evening.

Barry nodded knowingly.

"I see," he said. "I have some pieces here that might interest you.”

He walked over to the cabinets behind him and opened the door. Behind it were the valuables he couldn't put on display because there was no space for it. And out of these cabinets, he placed four items of interest on the counter for Paul to choose from. Paul was glad; none of the items on display seemed to fit the mood or the situation. Before him now lay a set of earrings, two nice necklaces, and a functional and beautiful watch.

"So, Paul," Bill asked. "what do you think?"

That was a good question. The earrings were out of the question. they were too big and Paul had no idea whether they would be good for Emma or not because he did not know anything about earrings. No, then the necklaces and the watch. Now, he knew that both he and Emma weren't the type of people to wear a watch - Paul because his iPhone was as good a time measurement tool, and Emma because she did not care as much as Paul or society at large about the exact time. There was one clock in her house, and that was it. That left only the necklaces. As he had no idea about earrings, he also had no idea about necklaces. While he vaguely knew what Emma would like more, neither of the necklaces seemed pretty to him or would look pretty on Emma. Besides, they were very ornate with a lot of tiny details, which did not appeal to Paul at all and he didn't know whether Emma would appreciate those details.

The price did not help either. He was saving up and these items were on the expensive side.

"I don't know..." Paul muttered.

Then he realized the man was standing close enough to hear him. He quickly corrected himself. "I mean, these are good, but I'm not sure.“

"Let me see." Ted came walking from the other side of the shop and shot a glance at the items on the counter from over Paul's shoulder. Only one cursory glance that was barely enough to take in all the intricate details of one of the items. Ted judged them based on this glance alone and he shook his head.

"We should've gone to the beach," he said. "You know, true love is either very expensive or priceless."

"Your girlfriend is your true love?"

Barry had gained more interest. He was intrigued and looked expectantly and patiently at Paul, who saw no reason not to reveal this information. After all, Bill trusted Barry, and therefore Paul trusted Barry.

"Yes, she is," he said. Barry leaned back and nodded, a mysterious smile on his face.

"I see," he said. "Wait here.”

Barry disappeared into the house, from where he first came when Paul, Ted, and Bill had entered his shop. The three of them were now all alone.

"What was that about?" Ted then asked."Barry's a sentimental man," Bill explained. "I'm sure he'll come back with something that has quite the sentimental value."

And Ted and Paul nodded as if this explained everything. So they waited for Barry's return. It was very quiet; there was nobody else in the shop, not even in the gift shop part. And Ted came closer to the counter again and took a little longer to look at the items still on display, but his gaze betrayed boredom and a desperate need to get out of this place as soon as possible.

"Can't you just pick one of these?" Ted asked Paul after a while.

"It needs to be a good gift," Paul said. He needed to be okay with it, and Emma ultimately needed to be okay with it. What use was a gift if it wasn't good. If Paul half-assed this, it may look like he didn't put any thought into it. He wanted the gift to reflect that he indeed had thought about it.

Ted picked up the smaller necklace.

"And this necklace isn't good?" He asked, showing the piece of jewelry to Paul.

Paul shook his head. "It doesn't feel right." And if the feeling isn't there, he wasn't going to purchase it.

"Then you buy it and make it right,” Ted responded, putting the necklace back where he found it. A couple of seconds later, Barry walked into his shop again, a small box and a piece of paper in his hands. "Then you buy it and make it right,” Ted responded, putting the necklace back where he found it. A couple of seconds later, Barry walked into his shop again, a small box and a piece of paper in his hands. 

"Here you go," he said, placing them on the counter. He opened the box and Paul interestedly looked inside.

It was something that felt right at first sight. There were two rings in the box: two old, simple rings that had no diamonds or any other details. They were just two rings, recently polished, not too present or unique and yet still not too mundane. It was the simplicity that drew Paul closer.

"A nice pair of rings," Barry explained, looking at it lovingly. "It is said these once belonged to a Frankish knight and his wife."

Paul couldn't believe his ears. Those rings must've made quite the journey. And they were the truest sign of true love, as you don't get married unless you are certain you want to spend the rest of your time with them.

"How did they end up here if they came from Europe?" Ted asked. Barry shot an indifferent glance at Ted.

"How did we all end up on this continent?" He said flatly. Ted had no answer and he ignored the old man. Barry then continued with his story.

"This knight is said to have been the noblest and most virtuous and so was the woman he married."

Paul nodded. It was intriguing. How did these people live? They had to have been good people. 

Then his eyes fell on the piece of paper. It must have something to do with the rings, but Barry hadn't explained this aspect yet. Or maybe he had just forgotten about the paper while he admired the rings for their history. And while they were pretty, Paul's interest was quickly drawn to the paper and what secrets it could hold.

"And what is this?" Paul pointed at the paper so that it was clear what he was talking about. Barry followed the finger and he took the piece of paper in his hand. Barry unfolded it and looked at it before putting it back on the counter.

"That..." Barry said, "is the translation of a translation of the original English translation of a poem that must have no doubt been beautiful. I believe it is a warning against the sins of this world, which are trying to tear love apart." The old man sighed. "Unfortunately, its original style and structure have mostly been lost in translation."

And despite the sadness that Paul detected in Barry's voice and his disappointment in the translators, Paul was still intrigued.

"Can I take a look?" he asked; Barry nodded and Paul carefully picked up the paper. It was thin and fragile and Paul slowly unfolded it, focusing hard on trying not to accidentally tear it. When he finally had unfolded it, he read the poem that it held.

_When the vile snake sets its eyes on you_

_Your venom will not relent_

_When the prurient cat passes through_

_Watch your thoughts; you will descend_

_When the indolent goat lies down_

_You will never get back up_

_When the proud peacock comes around_

_A lifted head will not keep you up_

_When the ravenous boar roams the land_

_And the tiny rat goes out on a stroll_

_Fill your stomach, fill your hand_

_But nothing fills the empty hole_

_When the grieving lion looks you in the face_

_Its fury burns deep in your eyes_

_When you resist all, you will reach the place_

_Where true love prevails and never dies_

It was… quite a peculiar poem. Paul now fully understood what Barry was talking about, but did not understand the poem or what these different animals had to do with it. He’d have to look up any symbolism about these animals to get a grasp on the meaning of this poem. And those descriptions were too over the top and weird for him.

And yet he liked it. It was just as imperfectly indirect as poetry was supposed to be, but he somehow made a connection with this one that he never had with any type of poem. Maybe it was just because he liked the rings, and the poem came with it.

He looked at the rings again, and he knew what he had to do. 

"I'll take them,” Paul said.

"Really?" That was Ted. He must have really been set in getting to the beach to pick up a rock.

"Yes," Paul said, and he turned to Barry. "How much is it?“

It turned out the rings were not as expensive as the pieces that Barry had presented first. The poem came with the rings and Paul did not have to pay any extras to get the poem with it. He was not going to present the rings with the poem - he would keep that, most likely forget about it and throw it away one day. Then, Barry gave some tips on how to keep the rings clean and in great shape. Then Bill bought some candy bar from the gift shop part and the three men left the shop. 

"So, you've got your gift," Ted said. "Now we just need the rest."

Paul nodded to himself. "Yeah. The rest."

This was going to be such a long day.


	4. Chatting

Emma lasted forty-five minutes in the water.

At first, she thought she had the hang of it. She did. Soon, she knew everything she needed to know about canoeing - everything except for taking things slowly and keeping your balance. Tim and Tom laughed every time she ended up in the water and had to climb back into the rented canoe. They, too, fell into the water more than once. But Emma seemed to have mastered the art of tumbling into the water, not even able to stay afloat for more than a couple of minutes at a time. When you swam more than canoeing trying to do the latter, that was not a good sign.

She called it quits after forty-five minutes. She’d put in the effort and she’d tried, but this activity just wasn’t for her. She’d be waiting on the shore with Becky and Paul, she told her brother-in-law and nephew. They could take their time.

Even then, the look in Tom’s eyes said enough and Emma doubted they would continue this activity past the allocated two hours. Other people wanted to use the canoe as well, and at least Emma could free one up. Besides, she could join Paul and Becky on the shore and have a nice conversation, make a short walk, whatever, so long as they were back to welcome Tim and Tom after another seventy-five minutes on the water.

Emma came to the place where Becky and Paul would be waiting. When she came closer, she saw that not two, but three people were standing there. So Paul and Becky had a visitor - probably one of the four that visited them last evening, when they’d just arrived. But Paul wasn’t there at all. It was just Becky, who was chatting with Charlotte and Bill’s daughter. 

But Paul wasn’t there at all. It was just Becky, who was chatting with Charlotte and Bill’s daughter. Alice, right? Yeah, her name was Alice. And as she approached the three women, they eventually also noticed her walking towards them. And they greeted her from the distance. They sat on the grass and when she was close enough, Emma sat down beside them.

"Hi!" she said. "Where's Paul?"

They should know where he'd gone to. And if not the entire group, then one of them would definitely know. Emma turned her head to Becky, and it wasn't her who answered.

"He went off with Bill and Ted," Alice said.

"He got dragged away, mostly," Becky elaborated. She did not seem to appreciate this turn of events. "They must have something important to discuss."

Like hell they did. Emma was not very familiar with Paul's co-workers, but she knew enough that it couldn't be too important. Unless some incredibly important work stuff came up in either Ted or Bill's mind, which probably didn't happen. Couldn't they go one day without their office buddies? Couldn't they spend one day with their respective partners or daughter?

Emma realized she wasn't the only one who felt this way. Charlotte was somber in Ted's absence for what was supposed to be a romantic get-away between the two of them and Alice had also come for her father.

"Wow," Emma then said. "Maybe we should all just eat dinner together and spend that time, so they'll have had enough of each other's company and can focus on us."

It would do them good. Let them spend the day together, allow them to be with one another for today, so that they hopefully will have had enough of one another or realize the real reason why they had come down the Hatchetfield nature reserve. And after dinner, when they all went their separate ways to their tents or hotel room, the women could point out what they wanted. Bill would think of it and stop seeing the others. Ted would want to spend time with Charlotte, and even if he'd still look for the others, Emma could tell Paul that he should spend time with her and her family instead of hanging around Ted, and trying to make an effort not to allow himself to be dragged away again. 

"I like that,” Becky said. She did not know these people and it would be great to get to know them, but it would be greater if she could just spend it with the Houstons, Paul and Emma.

Charlotte nodded in agreement. "That's good."

"Agreed," Alice then said in exasperation. "The only reason I came along is because of my father."

"What do you mean?" Becky wondered.

"Me and my dad come here every year," Alice explained. "Lately, I've realized that I don't really like camping. I'd rather stay in a hotel, visit a big city, go anywhere but here. But my dad loves to come here and I love spending time with my dad, so I'm coming along."

"Why don't you just tell him you don't like coming here?" Emma asked her. "I mean, you could go somewhere else as well."

Alice shrugged. "It's a family tradition and our relationship isn't the greatest right now. I don't want to hurt him more than necessary at the moment."

Emma nodded. She didn't really have such traditions with her family, and she definitely hadn't experienced going on vacation the same way. Did Tim, Tom, and Jane have any traditions as a family? Was this a similar family tradition that Emma had no knowledge of because she had not been in their lives. Did they even go on vacation last year, or did they stay at home because her brother-in-law or nephew were still mourning Jane? Such a simple sentence, yet it brought up so many questions within Emma. If this was a tradition, it would be all the more reason to keep Paul from his co-workers. Important stuff could also be discussed next week. 

"What do you think they're doing right now?" Becky asked. She had no idea, but maybe someone else knew what the men were doing.

Alice shook her head. "I have no idea."

"Me neither," Charlotte said. Her speaking brought attention to her. She did not look like she was okay, and Emma was worried about her. She was trembling and did not try to hide it. She had her hands clasped together, but they were shaking most visibly. It seemed like she was not completely present in the conversation, agreeing with statements but not bringing anything new to the conversation. Something was on her mind, something that made her anxious beyond belief, that she could not hide. Something worrisome.

"Charlotte?" Emma said. "Are you okay?"

Charlotte looked at Emma absentmindedly and nodded. 

"I'm fine. I just..." But she wasn't, and Emma, Becky, and Alice were watching her now as well. She couldn't lie. I'm fine - it was too easy to blurt out, especially for someone like Charlotte who had, for too long, refused to see that things were, in fact, not fine. It was time to face the ugly truths. "I'm afraid."

"What for?" Becky leaned closer to her. From what she understood of the conversation she had with Emma and Paul last night, Charlotte was going through a messy divorce. She hadn't implored about the previous relationship, but while Charlotte's husband had not been abusive, Becky still felt compassion for the girl who managed to escape her unhappy marriage the legal way and who was anxious for the eventual outcome.

Charlotte hesitated for a moment, but then she relaxed her shoulders and took a deep breath. She should learn to open up - this was the perfect opportunity.

"Ted has always been the kind of man who takes what he wants," Charlotte said. "I know, when he was a student, that he chased the boys and girls and often had more than one..." she paused, her lip trembling. Emma already guessed where this was going and felt sorry for her. Alice, who was sitting next to her, placed a hand on Charlotte's back and started rubbing and patting it, to show she wasn't alone.

"I thought I found love with Sam and he cheated on me," Charlotte continued, "Now I've found love with Ted and..."

"You don't want him to leave you," Becky said. She did not add three words she had initially wanted to say: for someone else. And Becky, too, felt compassion for the woman. Someone so sweet as Charlotte did not deserve to be cheated on by her husband and then kept in a stressed state because of the previous tendencies of another man she loved. She deserved a loving husband.

"Don't worry,” Emma then said. “Ted is with Bill and Paul now. They won't let him cheat on you." Charlotte’s eyes widened when Emma said this, and she immediately knew she had said something sensitive and wrong for this situation.

"If that even was on his mind,” Emma quickly added. “Which I don't think it is." 

Luckily, this had deterred Charlotte. She accepted Emma’s hypothesis and calmed down a little again. She was still shaking, off course, but it was a little less than before. Still, it would take them a lot of convincing before Charlotte could fully let go of her worries and anxieties. If they were able to rid her of all her worries, that is.

"Hey, I have an idea," Alice then said. "Let's brainstorm what to make for dinner. Okay?”

When Emma looked at her, Alice quickly glanced at Charlotte. It was easy to understand - let’s change the subject before she gets too emotional to enjoy her free time. 

"Yeah, good idea,” Becky said. And they continued their conversation in this direction, discussing what they could make for dinner. After a while, Charlotte seemed to forget what troubled her. 


	5. Preparations

Today was as good as today could have possibly been. 

Well, it had been for Tim. His father, on the other hand, was merely glad that Tim had had such a great time today. They’d gone canoeing, they’d walked around the reserve, then Tim had wanted to go into the water again at the beachfront. And Tom was dragged everywhere with Becky and watched fondly as Tim tried to keep his balance in the canoe, as he ran around on the beaten paths, as he still had energy left to splash around in the water and to make a sandcastle. Tom had smiled lovingly, for this was the happiest and liveliest he’d seen his son since Jane passed away.

The one thing that Tim wasn’t happy with was Emma not being with them the entire day. Granted, she was with them at every activity, but she then returned to their tents to prepare dinner with Charlotte. To make sure that Bill and Ted would spend more time with Paul today, so they wouldn’t drag him away the next day. Alice did not help; she spent her afternoon with Bill, who was subsequently dragged along by Ted, going everywhere in the nature reserve that was within their reach. If everything was going according to plan, she would be making it clear they could always see Paul at the office and should spend time with those they wanted to vacation with. 

Paul was not with them. He tagged along with Emma for the day, but if they were to believe her, he’d been acting a little weird - weirder than usual. And now Emma and Paul were sent to get some more vegetables from a local market and Becky and Tom were alone. Tim was currently with Bill, who volunteered to watch and entertain him while Becky, Tom, and Alice prepared the meal. While Alice was peeling potatoes, Tom joined Becky, who was preparing the meat for the barbecue that he had brought along for this special occasion. 

“Hey, you feeling okay?” he asked her. She'd been quiet, even around Alice. That was not her habit. It was time to check up on her, to make sure she was alright.

Becky nodded. “Yeah. It’s just…” She sighed and looked at Tom. “It’s overwhelming.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Tom responded. He had expected a certain amount of energy being put into this vacation, but having to think of four more people was just plain exhausting and overwhelming. He didn't sign up for this.

“Did you know Emma’s friend had many friends here, too?” Becky then asked him, looking up from the meat. Tom merely shrugged.

“I didn’t even know her friend had any more friends.” Paul was such a weird guy, of course, the only reason why he made a meaningful connection with Emma was that she used to serve him coffee. That he'd made friends at the office seemed strange to him.

But then there was Becky, not even a year out of an abusive relationship she had ended. He'd kept her away from society when possible and kept her from making and maintaining friendships. Though she was healing and doing great, she didn't know these four people, and Tom worried that she might not feel at ease among them. “Are you feeling comfortable around them?”

“I am," she responded confidently. She put down the chicken. "Are you?”

She watched him curiously. He stared right back at her and knew he couldn't lie to her or himself.

“I would’ve preferred if it were just you, me, Tim, Emma, and her friend. I didn’t imagine having dinner or spending time with four more people.” He did not necessarily dislike changes in his life, but they had planned this as a family outing. He already allowed Paul to tag along because Emma had invited him, but then to add four more people to the mix? They weren't family. They were strangers that should keep out and stay away; they could see Paul at the office. Could this even be a family vacation if strangers were invited to a family barbecue?

Tom glanced at the scene ahead. Bill was telling stories to Tim. Bold tales of wonder, no doubt. The kind of stories that kept children enthralled and wanting more. Tim, who wasn't that big on stories and people telling stories, only had eyes and ears for Bill and his stories. Tim was curious and silent and Bill told the story with such fervor as if he'd experienced them himself.

“At least Tim is enjoying himself,” Tom said. At least he wasn't bothered by the strangers - probably just new friends to him - showing up. At least he didn't know how his father struggled.

“It’s just for tonight," Becky comforted him. She pulled him into a hug and leaned her head on his shoulder. He closed his eyes. "Tomorrow, they’ll go their separate ways.”

“Are you sure about that?”

They broke the hug, and Becky placed her hands on his shoulders. She looked into his eyes with beautiful eyes, eyes that provided him comfort.

“If they don’t, the girls will make them,” Becky said. “They want to spend their vacations with their family, too.”

How did this turn into him trying to make Becky more comfortable with the thought of having to spend time with strangers into Becky doing the same thing for him? He had no idea, but he did like it.

“Good." Tom nodded. "‘Cause I don’t think I can deal with this longer than today.”

“It's just for tonight,” Becky said.

"Just for tonight," Tom repeated.

And when the evening was over and everyone went their separate ways and left them alone, they could do something fun with the family. 

* * *

At long last, the evening fell and dinner was ready. All around their camping spot, other people had started to prepare for their dinner or were already cooking it. By that time, the Houston barbecue had already started. They didn't have enough plates or vegetables, so they picked them up at the local store. The baked meat ended on the cardboard plates and there were more than enough vegetables to eat with the meat. Everyone was generally having a good time, eating what they like and laughing and all-round having a good time together.

The sky had gotten considerably darker - the blue had made way for the beautiful palette yellow and orange and pink that grew darker and darker every time someone else looked up. It was at that moment that Ted walked away from Charlotte, who was talking to Becky and Emma, and sat down next to Paul, to take advantage of Emma not paying attention.

“So," Ted began the conversation. "I’ve got some ideas about the location.”

Paul looked at him. “Really?”

The only reason why this was surprising to him, was because he did not know the area well. It was a place to go to for a vacation. It was the place people went for relaxation and, on occasion, to get married or take not-so-original wedding pictures. Other than that one spot, there weren't really any places that seemed romantic to him. Then again, he wasn't the most romantic person, so that could be another reason why he wasn't aware of those places.

“Yeah!" Ted said incredulously. How dare Paul question his abilities to scout for locations? "It wasn’t that hard. Not after I told Alice about it.”

Paul glanced at Alice. She was looking at them expectantly, and Paul knew that she knew what was going on. Paul immediately looked right back at Ted.

“You told Alice?” Paul had a hard time not raising his voice too much. Luckily, those who weren't supposed to hear it were distracted by Tim being loud.

“Yes, I did,” Ted said so matter-of-factly that it did not seem to bother him. Paul stared at him with wide eyes, in shock and confused. Ted waved it off. “Don’t be mad, she suggested some of the locations I’m going to offer you. She’s been a great help.”

Paul nodded to himself. Okay. This was going to work. He knew Alice well enough to know that she probably hadn't told Emma, especially since it was a secret. Bill surely must have told her she couldn't tell Emma. And Alice may have some good ideas, maybe even better ones than Ted would have found on his own. Paul trusted Alice, so he should trust Ted with this.

“Okay." Paul then said, nodding one last time. He looked at Ted. "What have you got?”

He could not imagine a time when he'd seen Ted so excited to relay information. The last time must have been when he shared the details of Charlotte's divorce and everything that disadvantaged Sam with Paul and Bill when Charlotte wasn't around.

“First off, there’s the beach," Ted said, "That’s easy, right? The sky’s gonna be clear, the moon’s gonna shine and illuminate the waves, it could be great.”

“Okay.”

“Then there’s the Nature Reserve arch, down one of the paths. You know the one. Should be easy to find, can’t be too hard to recreate a romantic mood.”

Of course it wouldn't be hard, considering Paul knew about it and was even pointed the way at some point. It was the easiest option. But there still was another option Ted had yet to present.

“And lastly, there’s the botanical garden.”

Paul frowned. “There’s a botanical garden?”

“Yes, it’s…” Ted stopped when he saw the quizzical look in Paul's eyes. Ted's excitement melted away. “You didn’t know?”

Paul shook his head.

“No, I did not,” he said. “Besides, wouldn’t it be closed by now?”

It was getting closer to eight pm. If he knew anything about gardens that were tended to regularly, especially botanical ones, they would probably have limited opening hours, not like public parks which tended to be free of entrance and less beautiful than botanical gardens. In his opinion. 

“That’s the beauty of it," Ted then said. "It’s not a closed-off garden, it’s more of a public space the city takes care of, but it's not as crap as a park. There’s a section with beautiful flowers and roses and stuff, but it’s a little further off and she might start asking questions.”

Paul nodded once. “Okay.” So he definitely wouldn't go to the gardens. He barely knew where they were, didn't even know they existed until not even a minute ago, and wouldn't waste time looking for it if he was the one bringing Emma there. That left the beachfront and the arch in the woods. It now came down to what he thought Emma would find most romantic. Or what he thought would be most romantic.

He would need some time to figure this out.

“So…" Ted said. "what’ll it be?”

He looked at Paul expectantly. Paul shrugged.

“I don’t know," Paul responded. "I think I’ll decide as I go.”

Ted was disappointed in Paul not making a decision right away, or not sharing this decision with him.

“Really?" Ted was very close to raising his voice. "You’re just gonna leave me hanging?”

“Give me time to make a decision,” Paul said.

“Alright!” Ted then said. He got up and walked right back to Charlotte. Ted was going to try to follow Paul and Emma, no doubt. He'd want to know how this would end, especially since he was involved in setting this scheme up.

Paul took a deep breath and a big bite of some baked chicken leg. If all went well tonight, he would finally have that label and security he desired. He was no fool, though, and knew this also had a high chance it was going to fail. Why wouldn't it? What gave him certainty bound Emma to him, took away that certain freedom she enjoyed. If she refused and could explain, at least he asked her the question.

Paul looked around. Nobody was paying attention to them. Emma was talking to Tom about something that Jane had done in high school. The others were talking and eating as well. Nobody, except for Bill and Ted and Alice knew what was going to happen. It excited him. It also made him extremely nervous, so he shoved some more chicken in his mouth in the hopes it would calm the nerves.

It wouldn't. It didn't make it worse, it only delayed the inevitable.

Paul glanced at the sky as it had gotten darker. The weight of the rings in his pocket increased tenfold. He couldn't wait any longer. He didn't want to go when it was so dark he couldn't see anymore and the longer he waited, the more he'd stumble over his words when they got to the location. The beach or the arch. Probably the arch. Maybe the beach. He still didn't know. Either way, he did not want to stumble over his words.

Paul got up, his appetite satiated and also gone. He approached Emma, who was also just finishing her dinner.

"Hey, Emma," he said. Emma looked at him and smiled. It was a beautiful smile. One that made his heart beat just a little faster. Or was it the stress?

"Hi," she said.

"Can I, er..." He took a deep breath. Take it easy! It's not like you have to sit through a musical. "Can I talk to you for a moment?"

"Sure." She looked at him expectantly, and Tom also looked at him. While she waited patiently, Tom glanced at Paul skeptically. Paul noticed and knowing that Tom watched made it worse. Couldn't he mind his own business, watch his kid?

"Can I talk to you alone?" Paul added to his previous sentence. "Just the two of us?"

He was getting warmer. His body produced the extra heat and he could just feel the sweat form on his forehead. Hopefully, it wasn't too visible to anyone, especially Emma.

Emma nodded in response. She did not seek any malicious or romantic intent behind his request and may have believed Paul wanted to share with her just how anxious he was in Tom's presence. She had seen the sweat and the way Paul had glanced at Tom and understood that Paul may not want to open up in front of Tom. 

"Okay, that's fine," Emma said. Paul nodded at her once. She put her plate away and Paul guided her away from the barbecue party, away from the other people, off to the place that Paul wanted to make clear he'd like to have that boyfriend-label.

They wandered farther and farther. And the farther they strayed, the stranger Emma thought it was. She looked over her shoulder and saw that they had already gone pretty far away from the group, far enough that they wouldn't hear a conversation. And Paul still did not attempt to stop walking away from them.

"Isn't this far enough?" Emma wondered.

"No." Paul shook his head. He didn't even try to hide his stress by this point. "I meant really alone."

He looked at Emma, who looked at him with a confused gaze. And in his anxiety, with the weight of the rings and his offer, he mistook that confusion with a hint of fear as well.

"I'm not going to hurt you, I swear, I just--"

"It's fine, Paul," Emma said to calm him down before he'd ramble on about not wanting to hurt her. She had been thinking about the situation and had concluded that Paul didn't want to lie to her, but also was keeping something from her. That combined with his clearly visible nerves provided a plausible scenario.

"Is it a surprise?”

"Yes."

"Let's go then."

Paul nodded once. And he sighed in relief when Emma smiled at him and nodded, too. That went well enough, now hopefully the second part would go just as well.

And while Paul put more distance between them and the barbecue party, Alice, Bill and Ted informed the others of what was going on and what would possibly have happened when the two of them returned.

They just hoped it wouldn’t sour the mood between Paul and Emma since they still had to spend two nights in the nature reserve.


	6. Moment of truth

How far away was it again?

Paul came to the conclusion he did not know. He knew where to go, but as he's never seen the Hatchetfield nature reserve wedding arch with his own eyes, he did not know how deep into the forest it would be. He did not even know precisely how it looked like and had to rely on his instincts to see to it that they did not accidentally pass it.

It had gotten darker. The lights on the paths had been turned on, casting electric white light on the paths at regular intervals. Paul did not consider this at all romantic and hoped this would change when they neared the arch. Somehow, he imagined the last fifty yards to the arch to be lined with torches that illuminated the dirt path with natural, orange flames. He'd be disappointed if that wasn't the case.

Next to him walked Emma, who held her hand on his arm. If she didn't, he'd unnecessarily speed up until he was almost running to their destination. He blamed the nerves; she did, too. By now, it was extremely hard for Paul to hide his anxiety, but at least Emma didn't know what was going to happen.

He unthinkingly sped up again. Emma held him back.

"Slow down, Paul," she said. Paul nodded and focused on his steps. Left, right, left, right, the same rhythm. It helped. Only for a little while.

"Where are we going?" Emma then asked.

Paul gulped. He wished he could tell her, but he also did not want to tell her. It was a strange situation.

"It's a surprise," he answered. He did not like that question in this specific context. Though, on the other hand, he should be glad that Emma did ask this. At least now, he knew she still had no idea where they were going - or maybe she had an idea, but didn't want Paul to know. Paul hoped the former was true.

"Can't you just say what's going on?"

Paul shook his head. "Not until we get there."

And then, everything would be clear. And hopefully, she would agree with him and return as officially boyfriend and girlfriend.

"Alright," Emma responded, squeezing his hand. "Let's get there quick."

"Yeah." Paul nodded. "Let's."

Together, they walked a little faster so that they would reach their destination more quickly. Paul liked that.

How far away was it?

Luckily, it was not too far away. The dirt path in the forest made many turns and twists and in the dark, even with the sparse artificial lighting, it was not always easy to see how long they'd still have to go. They only needed to make one more turn...

There it was, the Hatchetfield Nature Reserve arch, in all its glory. Or former glory. It may be the lighting or lack thereof, but Paul wasn't that impressed with the arch. It was just what it said: an arch. A large, white arch. Painted wood, and maybe some spots needed a repaint. People had left messages, sometimes lovely, sometimes crude, on the sides that were visible even from a distance and in the dark. The immediate surroundings had been dressed up a little with white ribbons, colorful flowers, and warmer lights, but the mood seemed to be mostly what you made of it. It was romantic if you wanted it to be; otherwise, it was just a random part of the path that was dressed up for the occasion of marriage, but nothing more.

"Here we are," Paul said, a smile coming to his face. Finally, he could ask!

"The Hatchetfield Nature Reserve arch," Emma stated, looking at the old thing. Like Paul, she was not in the slightest impressed by the arch. "I don't see why you've--"

Her eyes fell on Paul, who'd taken the rings from his pocket and held them in his hands, afraid they'd fall into the dirt and lose them. They were precious cargo, after all. And relieved the moment was finally here, Paul did not see the first hints of panic in Emma's eyes.

"Emma, I need to ask you something important.”

Her eyes fell on Paul, who'd taken the rings from his pocket and held them in his hands, afraid they'd fall into the dirt and lose them. They were precious cargo, after all. And relieved the moment was finally here, Paul did not see the first hints of panic in Emma's eyes.

"Emma, I need to ask you something important."

Emma's first reaction was to take a step back, completely speechless for a couple of moments. Paul wondered whether he should say something, pop the question, or give her some more time to calm down enough so that he could continue the conversation.

"Paul, I'm not saying this to be mean, but we've been together for half a year and that is going too fast."

Paul frowned. "What?" What was she talking about? Had he done something wrong, said something wrong?

Emma stared at him expectantly, but he didn't get it. "The rings? The arch?"

He looked at the rings, and then at the wedding arch. And suddenly, he got it.

"Oh!" So that's what she was trying to say. She only thought Paul was proposing to her.

Which he wasn't.

Which she thought he was.

And Paul panicked again, his anxiety levels going through the roof again. Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. He should fix this immediately.

"Oh, no, I don't want to marry you," he said. No, that wasn't correct either! "I mean, I do, but not right away, maybe after at least a year and a half and not in this place and--"

"Paul." Emma had interrupted him. "Deep breath."

She looked at him calmly, with a posture that was the complete opposite of Paul's. Was he sweating? Maybe not, but he'd come close.

He nodded a couple of times and breathed deeply. He should do this more often to calm down. It wasn't easy to breathe deeply when you're in a panic, anxiety-ridden and with only shallow breathing. He listened to her advice and it helped. His heart slowed down again and his nervousness went down with it. Now there only remained a healthy amount, one that would not go away until he had found an answer.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay." He nodded to himself. Okay. He was ready.

Though maybe he should put away the rings, or else she'd truly think he was going to ask her to marry him. She wasn't ready for it and neither was he. He straightened his back and then looked at Emma, who was now a little wary about the entire situation. He'd better say it directly and clearly.

"Emma," Paul said confidently, "I do not want to ask you to marry me today; that is a little fast. I do want you to know that I would like us to be girlfriend and boyfriend, officially. I'd like to have that label. Will you do me the honor of officially being my girlfriend?"

He took the rings out of his pocket again, if only so that he could fidget with them while Emma thought of the answer. 

He took the rings out of his pocket again, if only so that he could fidget with them while Emma thought of the answer. It was taking quite a while now. Paul did not consider this as a good sign.

"Paul..." Emma eventually said. She had a smile on her face, but she shook her head and shrugged. Did that mean she didn't know what she should answer? "Those rings are beautiful."

Paul nodded. "Yes, they are." His voice could not hide the nervousness. What did that mean, they were beautiful? Was it to be taken at face value or did the way this was said reveal a deeper connotation that Paul could not pick up on? Was she trying to let him off easy? It did sound like it.

And her stance did not help either. She was happy but hesitant. And Paul did not know what to think of it.

"Can I ask you a question before answering?" Emma asked. Paul had not seen this coming, but he nodded in response.

"Okay," he said. "So long as you do answer." Because he didn't think he'd be able to sleep if she did not give him a definitive answer.

Then Emma nodded, to show that she understood and to prelude the question. "I'm not saying anything is wrong, okay? But we've been fine since we started dating, literally nothing has gone wrong. I just want to know, why do you want that label?“

Paul blinked a couple of times. Didn't she know?

Of course she didn't. He'd let it slide for months, not informing her that he did want the label or why he wanted it. He'd call himself her boyfriend, only for her to follow it up by saying they hadn't put a label on it yet. She was oblivious to the fact that he had given himself the label, but he couldn't be a boyfriend if Emma didn't call herself his girlfriend.

"It's... a form of security," Paul said. He'd lowered his voice. It seemed appropriate. "I don't want you to feel trapped, because I know how you feel about it. For me, not having a label is not liberating. It is scary. I can't name properly what we have, at what stage we're at, and that's scary."

And Emma nodded slowly, as if to show them that she understood what he meant. This calmed him a little. At least she understood now. Or at least she had the information now to understand where he was coming from.

This was followed up with silence. But the silence was comforting instead of uncomfortable. He found it easy to wait for her reaction.

"So you'd feel more secure when we are - officially - boyfriend and girlfriend," Emma said, trying to understand what Paul meant.

And Paul nodded in relief. She understood!

"Yes," Paul said excitedly. Then he returned to his more solemn tone because there was one more thing that he wanted to make clear to her before she could make her decision. "Because... if we're not boyfriend and girlfriend, then what are we?"

Emma took a step closer to him. She held his hands, made skin contact with the rings, and looked at Paul.

She placed. It was a comforting move.

"We're still in love," Emma said calmly. "And label or no label, that's not going to change. Okay?" She rubbed her hands over his shoulder and he nodded.

This... felt strange. Emma understood and that was amazing and she did give him an answer, one he could understand and made him understand her views on their relationship. On the other hand, he really would've liked that she would have accepted the label and they would return, truly, as boyfriend and girlfriend. At least she knew now, and he had the confirmation that she did love with even without the label.

"Okay,” he said, nodding his head.

"Besides, true love doesn't need a label," Emma then said.

Paul could find himself with this statement. "Agreed."

They were about to go back to the others when a strange occurrence drew their attention. In the arch appeared a purple fluorescent light and twirled around, and a medieval knight in armor on horseback sprung out of it.


	7. The black knight

Paul was perplexed. And speechless. 

He had thought of many different outcomes of this event. An otherworldly portal appearing in the wedding arch and a medieval European knight jumped out of it - that was not what he had expected. It was both impressive and frightening. The knight rode a black horse that seemed temperamental and that only could be tamed by his owner. The knight wore protective armor as well as a cape, of which the colors were not distinguishable in the night. He did not wear a helmet, however, and his brown hair reached to his ears and flowed in the wind created by his horse coming forward. Paul took a step backward, while Emma put her arm where he'd once was. He took her hand and they watched as the mystery figure, that should not be here, got off his horse and walked towards them. He stopped when he stood two yards away from them. 

"The rings," the knight said in a clear voice, holding out an open gloved hand. For a moment, nothing happened. There was only silence and fear.

Emma squeezed Paul’s hand. He squeezed it back, not understanding the sign she’d tried to send.

“Paul.” Hearing his name as well as the knight turning his gaze on him made Paul realize that he had the rings and had completely forgotten about it. That's what happens when the sight of a medieval knight can do, especially since Paul had been stuck on the fact that such things shouldn't be around anymore, and neither should that purple light-portal thingy. 

On the other hand, last November an evil doll from another universe had tried to destroy their world and failed. It was only a matter of time until something weird happened again. Paul never thought it would be this, though. 

He quickly placed the rings in the knight's hands. It briefly crossed his mind that he really should've gone to the beach to find a nice looking shell. He expelled the thought - the same might have happened. It's just sad he paid for something that wasn't going to be used now.

“Here you go,” he said quietly. When he made no more contact with the rings, he quickly pulled back his hand, afraid the knight might grab it and do something to him. The knight looked at them and grunted. He pocketed the rings and returned to his horse, who had not tried to run away. It had remained in place, waiting for its rider to have retrieved the items he had come here for. 

Emma stepped back a little and placed a hand on Paul's hand. Paul did the same with her. It had become something of comfort. A hand on the back meant he was safe. He had no reason to feel safe, the knight hadn't left yet, but feeling her small hand on his back made this fear a little easier to bear. His hand on her back hopefully gave her the same feeling of comfort. 

The knight, so it seemed, wasn't done with them yet. Before mounting his horse, he turned to the Hatchetfield natives again. 

“Do you consider each other your true love?” 

Paul did not know whether the knight genuinely wanted to know if this was true or whether there was a deeper meaning behind this statement. He just knew the man looked like he could read their minds and would punish them for giving the wrong answer, which Paul did not want to do. But what was the right answer?

Emma shook her head. “That is none of your—” 

“I do,” Paul answered.

Was that a wrong answer? Maybe. The knight approached them again, this time walking more slowly, more threateningly. Paul regretted speaking up, but he couldn’t back down now.

“She is your true love?” the knight asked him directly. 

Paul hesitated, but pressured by the hardened and unwavering gaze of the knight, he nodded semi-confidently.

“Yes.”

Definitely the wrong answer. The knight immediately shook his head and his already hard face became furious. Or he was already angry and only now put his anger on display. Paul did not like it and Emma was afraid as well. She probably wished Paul had kept his mouth shut and hadn’t answered.

“Prove it,” the knight said coldly.

Then everything went quicker. The knight grabbed Emma and dragged her back to her horse. She tried to free herself, but his grasp on her was strong. Paul tried to hold on to her and to save her, but he dared not to lay a finger on the knight and soon her hand slipped out of his sweaty hand. The knight picked her up and threw her over the horse so that she lay with her stomach on its back.

“Emma!”

“Paul!”

The knight mounted the horse, preventing Emma from escaping from the horse. Paul could only watch in a panic as Emma tried to free herself and failed.

The knight turned his head one last time to Paul.

“Come and get her.” 

He spurred his horse. They turned around and while Emma shouted Paul’s name one last time, they disappeared through the purple light. 

Paul ran after them. _No, no, no, no, no._ This was not what was supposed to happen. This couldn’t be happening, not now. Tears formed in his eyes, form either panic or sorrow.

This was his mess. He couldn’t disappoint her. He had to get her back. 

He needed to get her back.

At the last second, moments before he ran into the light, it seemed his rational side was awakened. It screamed at him: _Stop! What are you doing?_

Right. What _was_ he doing?

He came to a halt only inches before the purple light. It was surprisingly mesmerizing from up close, with the light swirling in every which way. Paul stared at it for a couple of seconds before taking a few steps back, physically and mentally.

Okay. So, what now?

Emma was kidnapped. That was a fact. She was brought to - wherever, Paul didn’t know, but it lay beyond this purple light portal thing in the wedding arch. Someone needed to help her.

That someone, obviously, had to be him. He didn’t want to go through the purple light nor fight that knight to find out, but he would never be able to live with himself if he didn’t go to save her. Plus, he was certain Tom would kill him if Paul did not at least attempt to find Emma. Maybe he needed to get help…

_We’re losing time._

Yes, he was. Maybe. With each passing minute, second, the knight brought Emma further and further away from them. The knight would he handed the necessary time to do whatever twisted things he wanted with her. 

Paul couldn’t let that happen. And getting help took time, precious time. He’d have to run back to the others, tell them what happened, convince them that it did in fact happen, and then return to this place to go after them. He’d be losing time.

Was time even a factor? There was no mention of any set time he was given. There was no mention of anything. He just had to ‘prove’ she was his true love and to ‘come and get her’. Anything was possible. The road ahead was uncertain and he hated it, but he’d just have to stomach it until he got to Emma and that knight.

Someone called his name. Paul didn’t care. For all he knew, it was just a voice in his head reminding him to act quickly and without much hesitation. 

Alright, then. Okay.

Here goes nothing.

He stepped through the portal.


	8. Into the unknown

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was _not_ okay.

Ted had watched the scene play before his eyes - mostly because he’d followed them and lurked in the shadows and behind the bushes. He’d witnessed Emma accepting Paul but not the label, he’d seen the knight appear and he watched Emma being dragged into the portal and Paul, the dumbass, running right after her. 

And that left Ted to pick up the pieces and come up with a solution.

_Damn it, Paul!_

The one thing Ted could think of doing at the moment was returning to the group. 

I mean, what else could he do? Follow them through? No way! He wasn’t going to be a part of the problem when he could inform others of what has happened so that they could find a solution that Ted could not see as of yet. Besides, he did not want to deal with this problem alone and he wasn’t exactly equipped properly to handle it.

So Ted raced back to the group, running all the way back. Luckily, most everyone was still waiting around the fire. Charlotte was waiting for his return, as well as Paul and Emma’s, and talked to Becky. Bill and Alie hadn’t left yet, either, and they were in conversation with Tom. Ted couldn’t see the kid. It was late, though, and maybe the kid wanted to go to bed. That or Tom made him go to bed.

It was good the kid wasn’t there. This was not something for kids to worry about.

When the group noticed Ted ran back to them, Bill assumed Ted had to be quick not to be caught red-handedly by Emma and Paul. Charlotte was more appropriate and frowned, guessed something was off.

“Guys, we’ve got a serious problem on our hands!” Ted said when he’d come close enough. Or, he thought he’d spoken at a normal tone. His nervousness made him louder than he’d intended to.

“Sh!” Tom said. “Tim’s asleep.”

So the kid was asleep. Good.

“Sorry,” Ted said. “But Paul and Emma are gone.”

The silence was deafening as everyone wondered what Ted meant with this rather vague description.

“What?” Bill then said. Ted rolled his eyes.

“It’s a long story and I’m not entirely sure what happened, but they’re gone,” Ted then said. He couldn’t say anything else at the moment. His mind was still trying to get a grip on the reality that a fucking knight rode in on a horse and stole Emma and lured Paul to his realm through the purple portal with her kidnapping. How do you put that into words so that the others not only understood, but believed what he was saying? 

“How?” Becky wondered out loud. “Did they leave when you weren’t looking?” She gave him a certain look. Of course she didn’t approve of his eavesdropping on a private moment. Maybe she hoped Emma and Paul realized they were followed and changed locations when Ted wasn’t paying attention.

“No,” Ted said. “I mean, I couldn’t hear what exactly they said, but all of a sudden the arch just…” he motioned wildly with his arms while trying to find the right words. “It just turned into a portal, I guess? Anyway, there came purple light from it and a fucking knight came out of it.”

Did they think he was making this shit up? Probably, from the looks of Bill and Alice.

“A knight?” Tom asked.

Ted nodded. “Yeah, in full armor and on a black horse.”

“A medieval knight?” Bill asked for clarification.

Geez, Bill! Ted rolled his eyes and turned specifically to him. “Aren’t you listening? Yes!” He looked at the group again. “The knight grabbed Emma and took off.”

The group finally started to believe that and realized the gravity of the situation. Emma had been kidnapped and was in serious trouble, and Ted was not kidding at all. That could have been the case, but he didn’t give any clue to this being fake, because it wasn’t.

“What happened to Paul?” Alice asked. The question hadn’t come up yet and so far, his name hadn’t come up yet on its own. He’s “gone”, but how did that happen?

“He ran after her!” Ted said. “I almost got him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen and went straight through the portal.” 

Somehow, Tom did not believe Ted when he said Paul almost stopped. Ted did not seem like the bravest person, but more like the person who would run away when trouble started.

“Do you know where it leads?” He wondered out loud.

“How can I know?” Ted shrugged dramatically. “I haven’t gone through yet. If I had, I’d have known what lay on the other side and I would’ve told you.”

This statement was followed by silence. Ted couldn’t help but wonder what the others were thinking and hoped at least one of them knew what to do. Either way, each person of the group must be thinking something, so _someone_ would come up with a suitable solution.

“We gotta help them,” Charlotte eventually said. Ted immediately nodded.

“Right,” he said. The others agreed with her, which was the best outcome Ted could have imagined.

“Alright,” Ted then said, enthusiastic he wouldn’t have to deal with this kind of shit on his own. “Let’s go, then.”

And the group stood up, grabbed a coat if they had one (as the nights were colder than the days and they would be moving away from the campfire) and moved away from the campsite. 

But there was one small hiccup.

When Alice got up so that she could follow the others towards the strange portal in the arch, Bill noticed and stopped her.

“Alice, no,” he said. “You gotta stay here.”

She looked at him, disappointed. “But I want to help.”

Though terrifying and weird, this was the most exciting thing that had happened since she and Bill had arrived. Camping was normal, even boring at times. Now something new had shown itself and Bill did not want her to come along.

“I know, but…” He sighed. He saw her excitement, but it could seriously be dangerous and he already feared his daughter would also be taken by the knight and he did not want that to happen, should they find a way to help Paul and Emma.“I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, and someone needs to watch Tim while we’re away.”

It was a good excuse. It also truly was something someone needed to do. Two problems would be solved by one action, so long as Alice stayed behind.

“Please,” Tom then added. “I don’t want him to wake up to no-one being around. He doesn’t like being all alone.” Tim did not like being left alone, especially the last year. Tom had also picked up on Bill trying to keep his daughter out of potential danger.

“We’ll tell you what we’ve found when we come back,” Becky then told her in a moment of sympathy, when she saw just how disappointed Alice was. “It’s not going to be that weird.”

“It is that weird and we need to know what happened to them, now,” Ted chimed in. He then ushered the adults to the arch and left Alice behind. That was only for the best. Something told him whatever happened next wouldn’t be too good for kids, or even teenagers, to go through. Plus, Ted didn’t want one of the adults wasting time babysitting her while they could also work on a solution. 

Soon, the group had reached the arch. Ted had thought that if they didn’t return on time, the portal would be gone and the others would still think he was crazy. To his relief, the arch was still there and the strange purple light of the portal still swirled inside. They wouldn’t think he was crazy. So, he watched their confused and shocked faces when they first saw the portal and awaited their first verbal reactions.

“That is… something,” Bill said. He had no idea how to feel about this, or even how to react to this. As apparent on the faces of the others, they too did not know what to think about this. 

“I know, right?” Ted said. It was still weird, even for him, though he’d seen it before.

“And Paul and Emma went through this… thing?” Becky asked. She did not have a hard time grasping it was going on, but it was just a final bit of confirmation. Ted shook his head - there was no other portal around they could’ve gone through, so yeah, this was the place where Paul and Emma crossed over to the other side. 

“I saw them go through this,” Ted said. “They’re somewhere on the other side.”

An awkward silence followed, during which everyone looked at the portal. Only Ted’s head was somewhat clearer. He still hoped for one of them to figure out what to do, so long as it involved - to a degree - staying on their side of the portal. He was not at all interested in what might be waiting for them on the other side of the portal.

“Son of a bitch.” Tom muttered eventually and he shook his head. He took the first steps towards the portal in the arch. Ted, who had not expected this to happen, stepped in the way and physically blocked Tom’s path.

“What are you doing?” He asked.

“I’m going through,” Tom responded. He spoke with such conviction Ted took a step backward, to step out of the way. Tom did not take his eyes off of Ted. “Why else did you bring us here?”

“To find a solution,” Ted said. That’s what they needed - a solution to this problem. Think first, do stupid shit (like walking through) later. 

“What else can we do but to go through and help them out there?” Tom then asked. Was there any other alternative? To Ted, there was, but he could not deny that Tom did have a point. When Ted looked at the others he had brought here, he noticed some of them were more inclined to listen to Tom instead of thinking things through first.

“What if we can’t come back?” Ted retorted. 

“Then we’ll find a way to go back after we’ve found Emma and Paul,” Tom said. Ted realized he could not dissuade Tom from the plan he’d created and stepped aside properly. If he wanted to go through, Ted was not going to stop him. Maybe he could be their scout while the sane people who stayed on the Hatchetfield side could construct a proper plan.

“I’ll follow you,” Becky then said, stepping forward as well. Tom turned his girlfriend.

“You don’t need to.”

“I want to.” She took his hand and nodded determinedly. Tom nodded back. “Let’s go.”

Ted shook his head as Tom and Becky walked through the portal. “Shit.”

Bill and Charlotte had been silent until that point. They did nothing to stop Tom and Becky, mostly because they did not know the two. Also because they, too, were debating whether to cross the border and physically go help Emma and Paul. 

“We should go, too,” Charlotte eventually said, nodding to herself. Ted was not a fan of this conclusion, while Bill seemed to agree with Charlotte.

Fuck. This was not where he thought this was going to go. Maybe he should’ve handled this situation differently. Maybe he should’ve explicitly stated it was dangerous to pass through because he hadn’t and now everyone seemed to want to go to the other side.

“No, we shouldn’t,” Ted said with a certain intensity. “Paul is done for, and so is Emma and now, so are Tom and Becky!”

Charlotte did not appreciate Ted’s tone as well as the way he tried to keep them from helping out a friend. When Ted saw the anger in her eyes - her soft eyes - he knew he fucked up. It took a lot to make such a sweet and forgiving person like Charlotte angry.

“Paul is a friend.”

“Exactly,” Bill said, supporting her. 

“And I will not abandon him now. He never abandoned us.”

“Well, er…” Ted said, trying to think of any situations in which Paul had, as Charlotte had stated, abandoned them, but nothing came to mind. Because Paul had always helped, and because Charlotte being angry threw him off so much he couldn’t think of anything.

“He needs our help,” Charlotte concluded courageously. “So we’ll help him. With or without you.”

Bill nodded in support. He followed Charlotte through the portal.

And then Ted was alone with the portal, that was still open. The longer Ted looked at it, the more certain he was the portal was mocking him, inviting him to come through as well. He shook his head at it. 

He couldn’t leave - not while the others were on the other side. Not while Charlotte was on the other side. And what kind of person would they think he was if everyone - even Bill! - had gone through the portal to help, while he stayed behind. Because he was too cowardly, because he really didn’t want to, because Paul realistically wasn’t worth all this drama. 

Was a bad reputation worth staying behind for?

“Oh, fuck it.”

Ted walked through the portal, hoping for the best.


	9. At the start

Paul had run through the portal. A couple of steps, at the most, but he had run.

And he stopped.

He shook his head. Everything was wrong. He was wrong, the portal was wrong and so was this world.

Paul had had no expectations. Why would he - he hadn’t had the proper time. Despite the previous appearance of the knight on his horse, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind that the world should match.

Maybe it was better that way, but the transition from Hatchetfield to this was still a shock.

Paul was utterly alone, standing in a green meadow while the sun shone brightly, ready for a new day. It lay atop a hill and rolled down into a forested valley that did not give away its secrets. On the other side, a sprawling marsh separated the valley from the stone castle, the only man-made construction in sight, on the highest hill around. The road there was just as simple: a dirt trail, one already stood on, its brown color visible against the grass, lead travelers down the hill and through the valley below. It was as inviting as it was frightening; Paul did not have a good feeling about this.

The wedding arch behind him had been replaced into the miniature version of an arch, like the one in Paris - Paul did not remember at the moment. A very tall person could still fit under and was constructed with darker stones. Words were inscribed on the top; words that Paul did not recognize or could translate because he had no idea what language this was. 

All in all, there was one thing he could be certain of: he was not ready.

From the moment he stepped out of the portal into this new world, until the moment he realized he’s going to have to do it because he can’t go back, the portal is gone, he had kept it together. But the reality settled in. He had no idea what he’d started. He just wanted to help Emma - what the fuck was he doing? What was waiting ahead, in the valley that gave him bad vibes, in the marsh and the castle? 

On top of that, it could have been the change of scenery that shocked and paralyzed him the most. He was certainly not in Hatchetfield anymore, the world and the stance of the early morning sun proved as much. He was far from home - _way_ too far - and he couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle the uncertainty and being the only one responsible for getting Emma out of a sticky situation he brought her into, provided she couldn’t escape on her own.

God, what had he begun?

And Paul broke down in a panic attack. His temperature rose, his heart was beating at a faster pace than usual, he sweated, he trembled, he cried, he crouched down and just let go of the crippling stress that had been building up since he arrived at the nature reserve. And as he broke down, he lost all the worries in the world. He didn’t care someone saw him - there was no-one around to see. The only witness was the single crow in the air, circling up high to see who this new visitor was. 

Paul had no idea how long this panic attack had lasted. He just knew that, when he was calming down, he had to work hard not to let his mind wander too much. One thought could elicit another and before he knew it, he would be launched into a second panic attack. He’d allow himself to recover first, to get it all out of his system, before he even thought about the best strategy, about what could happen, about how he’d have to do it all alone. 

How long would he be away? Hopefully, not long enough that his friends would start to worry. That was about the extent that he allowed his mind to wander.

He looked over at the castle. Emma was there. Even if she wasn’t there physically yet, that was where she would be taken. That is where she would be. The final destination, a medieval castle where a medieval knight would be waiting for him.

_Prove it._

Down there, it wouldn’t just be a walk of endurance. It couldn’t be. There was something down there, that might prove Emma was his true love. 

But how the fuck would that work? How could he physically prove his love for her? Why did he even have to prove it in the first place? He knew it, Emma knew it, that should be enough. An unknown third party shouldn’t be offended at what they had.

Even if it still officially had no label. 

Paul took a deep breath. Okay. He’d become calm enough to finally start the journey. Nerves would be present, he couldn’t change that. But he thought they were at the lowest point that they could be at this moment, so he might as well get to it so he could get it over with, so he and Emma could return home.

Paul stood up. He took a few steps ahead on the road when a strange noise behind him drew his attention.

He turned around. The purple light of the portal had cracked and appeared in the stone arch. He stared at it - what was going on? Was this a test already? God, he wasn’t prepared for it.

But nothing was the matter. Tom Houston and Becky Barnes walked out of the portal, which disappeared as soon as they had completely walked through.

“Tom? Becky?”

Paul could not believe his eyes. What were they doing here? He was glad to see a familiar face, but they should not be here. 

“Paul!” Becky rushed to him. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… fine. Physically.” He glanced at her and Tom. “What are you doing here?”

“We’ve come to help you,” Tom said. He folded his arms. There was something about his stance that Paul did not like. Was Tom mad at him? Annoyed? Paul could not tell. 

“Help me?”

“We heard from Ted what had happened,” Becky explained. “He told us about the knight and Emma being kidnapped.” 

Did he now?

If Ted had indeed relayed this to the group, that had to mean he had spied on Emma and Paul. Paul, in his paranoia, had thought that he hadn’t spotted anyone following them. He thought their private moment was private, that he’d been the only one who was able to help Emma.

On one hand, it was a private moment and not meant for anyone’s eyes, not even Ted’s. On the other hand, if that hadn’t had happened, Paul would have been completely alone, and in hindsight, it was nicer not to have to go down this road on his own. 

“Well, thanks for the help,” he said. Before he could say or ask anything else, two more people walked through the portal and appeared on their end. Paul could not believe his eyes - he didn’t believe they were brave enough.

“Charlotte!” he exclaimed. “Bill!”

“Paul,” Bill said. He came closer and pulled Paul in an embrace. Paul let him - for all Bill knew, Paul could’ve already been hurt. And after a panic attack, it was nice to hold someone, even if it was just a short time.

“We’ve come to help,” Charlotte told him. Paul nodded.

“Thanks,” he said. It may not have sounded so thankful, but he hadn’t expected anyone to come out to help him out. The four of them were good company, especially with Tom around. Not because Tom was a delight to be around (Paul would rather him be gone so there’d be a good mood), but because he was the only one of them who possessed any skills that would be useful against a knight who would fight them.

And finally, the last member of the party walked through the portal. The only difference with the others was that Ted only did it begrudgingly and wasn’t entirely happy with his final decision. He immediately turned his head to Paul.

“You’d better appreciate this.” The words had barely left his mouth before Ted looked around and realized how different this world was from Hatchetfield. “The fuck?”

The others had noticed, too. They were mostly confused about the position of the sun rising in the east, as compared to the midnight moon in Hatchetfield. But they had moved on already - they would see much of this world on their journey with Paul and could admire or think about it as they crossed the valley.

Eventually, Ted snapped out of it and turned his head to Paul, who was grateful for another set of helping hands, but who’d rather make the journey without his loud colleague. 

“So?” Ted asked. “Where is she?”

The others looked at Paul as well. He hadn’t told them-where the knight had brought Emma. He hadn’t had the chance yet. But now everyone had arrived and he wouldn’t likely be interrupted, he could tell them.

Paul pointed at the castle. His finger still lightly trembled.

“In that castle, I think.”

“You think?” Ted said. Paul sighed - why did Ted have to ruin it already? What a great start to the journey.

“I didn’t see the knight take her there,” Paul said in his defense, “but there isn’t anywhere else he could’ve brought her.” He looked at Ted as if to ask if this was all. Ted either did not catch it or purposefully ignored Paul. So Paul continued.“We’ll also have to go through the valley. It seems to be the only accessible road.”

It was. They could not go around; the valley was too big to go around. The shortest route towards the castle was through the treacherous valley. From the way he had intoned the last sentence and the way he looked down, he hoped he communicated just how much it scared him to go down there.

“Why doesn’t he confront us himself?” Tom asked. Paul somehow perceived it as an attack, even though it was a genuine question. Paul eventually realized this, too, and answered.

“Because I, er…” How was he going to explain this? Maybe just by being straightforward. They believed the knight story, so they should believe the real story.

“He wants me to prove my love for Emma, or something.”

“Really?” Ted again. 

“He said ‘prove it’,” Paul explained. “I guess that’s what that means.” That. The valley that probably obscured dangers unseen. The valley they would have to cross to get to Emma. And while it would stress him out to the fullest, if he survived it, he would get to Emma. And luckily, he would not be alone. 

But the group was not complete yet. The portal appeared once more and the final member of their rescue party joined them. Alice stepped out of the portal.

Immediately, her appearance caused a fuss in the group. Especially Bill and, strangely enough, Tom, we're not happy to see Alice here. Neither was Paul - this could be dangerous, this was not the best place for a kid. Paul eyes Bill - he told her to stay behind, right?

“Alice!?” Bill shouted. He ran up to his daughter. “What are you doing here?”

“It wanted to help,” she said. She was determined yet surprised, shocked, and terrified when Tom approached. He was like a bull, enraged, and he'd set his eyes on the girl. Becky’s hand on his arm barely stopped or tempered him.

“You abandoned Tim?” He had raised his voice and scared the crap out of her. She took a step backward. “I didn’t- he was asleep.” She glanced around - seeing her father and Paul looking sympathetic towards her, she found the courage to continue to speak. “He's not aware of anything that's going on. I’ve asked your neighbors to keep an eye on him. They’ll tell him we’re helping Paul if we’re not back in time.”

Tom was not very happy with the way things have turned out, but they couldn’t bring her back to Tim. The portal had disappeared again, she was stuck with them until the end of the journey. 

Luckily, Tom saw how terrified she was and he backed away from her; it wasn’t his intention to scare her. But that didn’t take away he didn’t want Tim to be alone, and that Alice was the closest person on the camping grounds that he trusted. At least Alice had informed the neighbors so that they could watch and care for Tim until they got back. So they should do this as quickly as they could, to get back to Tim.

“Is a knight really involved?” Alice asked in a small voice. She too had heard about the knight, and while she had first written it off as an exaggeration on Ted’s part - according to her father, Ted exaggerated a lot- but seeing the castle in the distance and feeling the general strange atmosphere of the world she entered made her doubt this.

“Yes, it is,” Paul said without beating around the bush. Alice took a deep breath and nodded to herself. Maybe she wished that she had listened to her father and stayed behind in Hatchetfield with Tim. But there was no going back and the realization slowly crept in, gripped her heart, and did not let go.

“You shouldn't have come, Alice,” Bill then said, pulling his daughter in a hug when he saw how her facial expressions changed to reflect her regrets and fears. 

“I just want to help,” she said softly.

“I know,” Bill said. “I know.”

In the meantime, Ted was not at all interested in the melodrama that Alice brought to this universe and out of pure boredom, as everyone else was paying attention to Alice to some degree, he decided to take a closer looked at the stone arch that connected to the Hatchetfield nature reserve wedding arch.

“What does that mean?”

The attention shifted. Ted was pointing to the top of the arch, something nobody had yet paid much attention to. When Paul looked, he first thought Ted was seeking attention. Then he realized Ted had a valid point. Something was chiseled on the top of the arch. They were separate words that, upon first read, Paul did not understand. Four words were carved on their side of the arch, words that he knew he wouldn’t be able to pronounce. He might only be able to say ‘ira’ and ‘gula’, but he did not know what they meant. But there was no doubt that this could be important.

“It looks like it’s Spanish,” Becky said. Paul could get into that, but he knew too little about the language to fully agree with that statement.

“That’s not Spanish,” Alice said, her eyes trained on the words. 

“Then what is it?” Charlotte wondered. 

“It’s Latin.”

“How would you know?” Ted asked her. He used a derogatory tone; he hadn’t asked her, but the adults who might have also known this. Except none of them took Latin in high school and ever saw it. The closest Ted every came to the language and its culture, was a caesar salad. 

“It did extra credit for art history class,” Alice explained calmly. She was not in the mood to let Ted talk her down and would not challenge him. She focused on the writings on the arch instead.

“Those words… I think they are the seven sins in Latin.”

Nobody really knew how to respond to that. Paul and most others were a little confused, whereas Tom probably wondered if she was saying this so she could indeed help them out, if only for a little while. And then, there was Ted, who asked the real questions. 

“What kind of art class teaches you Latin?” he wondered out loud. 

Alice had walked around to the other side, to see if any other words were carved in there. Based on the look of recognition on her face, there were. She came back to their side when Ted asked that question.

“The kind where the painting you need to analyze refers to the sins in Latin and you spend enough time with it to get to know them by heart,” she responded, not giving him any attention beyond this. Her eyes were fixated on the Latin words. She pointed at the first and shortest Latin word. 

“Ira,” she said. “That’s anger.”

“As in ire?” Becky asked. Alice nodded.

“Yeah.” Her finger moved as she went over each of the sins. “Gula is gluttony, avaritia is greed. Superbia. That’s pride.” she dropped her finger. Only four words had been carved into the stone on their side. The other three were carved on the back.

“Acedia is sloth. That only leaves… er…” 

Alice loved around the arch again, to see the last two words so that she would be reminded what they were and could share them with the group.

Ted rolled his eyes. “She doesn’t even know.”

None of these other adults appreciated the comment and made this clear either verbally or non-verbally. They could not allow him, in his bitterness about the situation, to lash out at and criticize anyone about their shortcomings, especially towards Alice.

“Luxuria and invidia,” Alice eventually said. “Lust and envy.”

“That’s all of them?” Charlotte asked. 

“All seven, yes,” Alice confirmed, nodding once. Seven sins, seven things that they might want to pay attention to. Seven things that some members of their party were already forgetting about because they had no idea what to do with this information. 

“Thank you,” Paul told her.

“Do you think it’ll have something to do with the knight?” Alice asked.

“Maybe,” Tom said. He did not know enough about the entire situation to positively say there was a connection. Even Paul, who supposedly had the most information available, was clueless as to whether this was important to saving Emma or not. 

“Knights were virtuous,” Paul eventually said hesitantly. “Maybe they carved it there to remind themselves what not to be. Or do.”

“It’s possible,” Becky said. It seemed like a plausible explanation.

But just in case it was not a coincidence these words were chiseled on the top stones of the arch, the others started looking around at the arch, for other messages that may be there. Tom was the first to see anything. He had gone inside the arch and looked at the sides.

“Has anyone read this?” he said. This was redundant; nobody had seen it as they passed through to this world, and now Tom had called attention upon it. 

“Another message?” Paul said, coming a little closer. He kept his distance, but he could see what exactly Tom had found before it was crowded. It was a plaque, about five inches by ten, on which a text had been placed.

“It’s in English,” Tom said. He tilted his head a little and started reading from the plaque. “ _When the vile snake sets its eyes on you—_ ”

“Wait,” Paul said. Tom stopped talking. “I think I know that.”

As Paul approached the arch and looked at it, Tom frowned at him. “What?”

Paul took a look at the text, pushing past Tom, and found that he recognized every word. He carefully read it through and with each new line, his heart sank a little. The words on top of the arch were important to what they were about to do after all. 

“Yeah, I know this,” Paul said. And now he owed the others an explanation as to why he knew this. “I… when I bought the rings, this poem came with it.”

“Really?” Ted said. He looked at the words as if it was the first time he ever saw them. Paul shook his head once - what benefit was there to pretend he did not recognize it. Or maybe he had already purged the words from his memory because they hadn’t been important.

“Yeah,” Paul said.

“So these sins will be on our path?” Charlotte wondered out loud.

“Apparently,” Bill said. He had as much of a clue as anyone as to what this all could mean in the long run. The future would show them in possibly disastrous ways.

“Right,” Tom said, drawing out the syllable. He stepped away from the arch, towards the beaten path that would lead them down the valley. “Let’s go.”

Paul blinked. “What?”

Tom stopped and turned to the group again. None of them had moved closer, all except for Becky.

“We can talk all we want, but we’re not going to get any closer to rescuing Emma if we don’t actually do something.” 

Paul knew that. But the valley still scared him. He knew it was silly. He knew nothing of what was going to happen. He should just get over it and place foot after foot on the path, go down it and be scared at the moment when he should be scared. It was only a matter of which fear would take the upper hand - fear of the unknown, or fear of potentially losing Emma.

“You can’t postpone this forever,” Tom said. “Come on.”

He did continue. Instead, he waited for Paul, though his facial expressions let everyone know his irritation about the stalling - it seemed that way to Paul, at least.

“Okay,” Paul said, taking a first hesitant step. “Okay. Okay.” Then another. And another. That wasn’t that bad. 

And before he knew it, he was walking down the road and his friends followed, finally starting the road to the castle. 


	10. The lion's den

This has to be the most turbulent and scary ride of Emma’s life, and it had everything to do with the circumstances.

The knight had grabbed her and roughly thrown her over the horse, her stomach where the horse’s neck began. At first, she insulted him and tried to free herself. The knight had his hand pressed against her back, though, and paid no attention to the words. As the journey progressed and the horse ran faster and faster, Emma started to realize just how dangerously close she was to falling off and seriously injuring herself. She clung to the neck, holding on to its hair and, only for the sake of not falling off, was grateful the knight’s hand on her back kept her in place.

It was a hundred times scarier now she lay on the horse with her head down, her gaze perpetually on the ground, one hazy blur of greens and browns and greys that flew by. Closing her eyes didn’t make it any less terrifying - the bumps in the road and the movement of the horse made her bounce lightly. Not enough to bump her off, but just enough to make it feel like she could fall off any moment, even if the knight would not allow it. 

Emma could not tell how long the journey was. She was too busy seeing her life flash before her eyes with each bump that was a little rougher than usual, too busy trying not to fall off to keep track of time. What mattered was that the horse eventually did slow down and she could finally catch her breath.

But this sweet moment did not last long. The knight pulled her off of the horse and placed her on the ground. He grasped her wrist and dragged her with him. She struggled, tried to pry his fingers loose, tried to stall by firmly setting her feet, tried to keep them rooted. But the knight was relentless. Emma could only compare herself to a dog who did not want to go one direction, but the owner persisted and continued without regard to the dog’s wants. The only difference was that she could insult him and try to hurt him with words, which did not seem to hurt him. 

As she tried to free herself, she did take in some details of her surroundings. The horse was left at the beginning of a paved road, with walls on either side, that led towards the knight’s home, a large castle. Along the walls, with intervals of four to five yards, hung shields with the coat of arms of the knight; a golden lion’s head on a field of red. Each shield was accompanied by a pair of crossed swords, hanging behind the shield and attaching it to the wall, purely decorative. 

The first thing that stuck with her was the gate. A portcullis, with a metal gate, that was raised. The knight did not make any attempts of lowering the gate or making anyone lower it. Not that the knight could give the command; there was nobody around to listen to his commands.

That was what was most disturbing. In a castle, a lot of things were happening and many things needed to be done inside. At the very least it should be protected. But it was quiet - surely too quiet for its size. The castle occupied a plot of land the size of a big park and was as high as a small apartment building, with high walls encompassing the area and towers of varying heights on the property.

Emma did not have enough time to take in all of the separate details of the castle or to appreciate the subjective beauty of the building in the morning sun. The knight dragged her into the building, into a large hall that was perfect as a welcome hall, a dining room, and a central common room. The only room where the other living soul of this world was currently waiting for the knight to return from his impromptu journey through the portal. 

This friend was not conventionally clothed - then again, anything was possible for this strange world, and especially strange clothes could be expected. He wore a long black robe, as if he were a wizard, and carried a staff a little longer than his length. And, most importantly, he seemed shocked to see his friend pull a girl onto his property.

The shock left him incapacitated until the knight threw Emma in front of him. 

“You can’t…” he began and approached Emma and the knight. He stopped in his tracks and shook his head in disappointment and anger. “This is unacceptable. This is not what this road was made for!”

The knight did not seem to listen to his friend either. If he did listen, he did not respond to these words in any way. Instead, the knight walked up to the wizard-cosplayer and shoved the rings into his hands.

“Store these rings somewhere safe.” He let go immediately, not wanting to hold on to the rings any longer. The man looked at the rings, now in his hands, and back at the knight. 

“Rohan…”

“I do not want to see them again.” The knight, named Rohan, interrupted his friend. “And find the girl a room.”

Without facing Emma or even looking at her once, the knight stormed out of the room. The heavy doors of the big hall fell closed with a bang and only when they did, did the cosplayer approach Emma. Maybe he’d wanted to help her get up, but he did not get the chance, as she had gotten to her feet by herself.

“I am so sorry about his behavior,” he then said with an apologetic look in his eyes. He glanced at the double door. “He’s not always the nicest when he’s angry.”

Emma, who had folded her arms, shook her head. “That’s not just angry.” 

“He has anger issues that he never quite worked through,” the man said apologetically. 

Emma did not know what to think about this man. He had to be a friend of Rohan’s, but he did recognize the shortcomings of the knight and had not approved of the kidnapping. Yet, he seemed to accept it, did not fight to have her returned to her world, or even to get an apology out of him. But those words… He had given up the fight against Rohan.

“What the hell is going on here?” she asked him. She almost shouted, stared at him intensely. If the knight wouldn’t talk, he would. He seemed more approachable than Rohan, and unlike the knight, he did listen to her words and considered them.

“It is a long story,” he eventually said with a sigh.

“Well, I have the fucking time,” Emma told him. “What’s happening?”

At least he was willing to answer. He motioned her to a chair, so that she may sit if she wished to. Emma, however, was not in the mood for anything that wasn’t a fucking explanation of what was going on with her and Paul and the knight.

The wizard-cosplayer did sit down and looked at Emma while he told the tale of Rohan’s mission.

“A long time ago, Rohan was in love,” the man started. A loving smile came to his face. “She was a beautiful woman, a count’s daughter. Well-off and beautiful is a rare combination. He loved her as much as she loved him. Or at least, that’s what he thought.” 

He paused and took the time to shake his head. The fondness on his face was replaced with disappointment in his eyes. “They were going to marry. He already had chosen their rings. He was waiting for her at the altar, but she never came. We learned then and there she never truly loved him. While it was not explicitly stated, her joining a nunnery out of free will makes as much clear. He… did not take it well.”

Emma could imagine. Her first impression of Rohan was not a good one, nor would anything else that he may do change the perception she had. It correlated to the reality: Rohan was a bitter, entitled man who loved a girl enough not to see she did not love him back. A little creepy and totally not okay. Rohan probably threw a hissy fit at the altar and must’ve toppled it over, no doubt. 

The man continued his explanation. “He asked me to create this road, specifically to—”

Wait a minute. 

“You made this?” Emma asked him incredulously. With the distance that she traveled, despite not seeing much of it, there was no way he could have done this on his own, as he had implied. Besides, there was nobody else around to create this, unless everyone else had died. Which she wasn’t sure of, considering the only two people in this world could’ve just escaped from the Middle Ages and came to this place, where they were kept eternally young or became immortal or something like that.

The man nodded.

“Obviously.” He spoke like it was understandable, like it was one of the easiest things to understand about the situation. “He was not going to ask another magician to do the same job.” 

Emma could not believe her ears and for some seconds, she was left completely speechless and shocked. Her reaction - or rather, non-reaction - left the man confused. He tilted his head and frowned at her for a while, until he realized he couldn’t properly guess why she froze and decided to just ask her.

“Is there something wrong?”

“You’re a wizard,” Emma stammered. It wasn’t so much a question as it was a statement to convince herself it might be true. After the dark day that was the Black Friday mania, after an entity tried to take over the world through the power of capitalism and a touch of magic, anything was possible.

That did not mean she ever expected to be face to face with an actual wizard, though.

“Yes,” the man said, nodding once. He paused, shifted in his seat and looked at her again. “I believe where you’re from, there are no magicians.”

“They don’t exist at all,” Emma said, still in shock. So there was her confirmation - he was a wizard. It did not matter how powerful he was, and neither did his allegiance. His presence alone was more than enough to keep her in that stupor.

“Understood,” the wizard said. “I created the road specifically because Rohan asked me to. Should his lover ever change her mind, she would have to brave the road on her own to prove that her love for him was true. She should take the rings and offer them to him as penance if she succeeded. Then he could forgive her and they could start their life together.”

As he spoke, Emma regained her senses and had recovered from the initial shock enough to realize that this story, the entire plan that Rohan had in mind, was nothing less than a fantasy that did not account for the fact that she may never come here or want to go back to him. 

“That’s bullshit.”

The wizard nodded. He shot her a sympathetic look. “I agree that it is not the best way to cope with heartbreak.”

That was a contender for the understatement of the year. 

Now Emma had heard the entire story and kind of understood what was going on and why - kind of - there still was one thing that she could not get; one thing that might have made it so that this entire situation might not have happened in the first place.

“Why did you even do this?” Emma asked him. When he didn’t answer, when he looked away from her, she shook her head and anger rose within her. 

“You could’ve _not_ created this road,” she said. “You could have refused and moved on.”

“I could not refuse,” the wizard firmly told her without raising his voice. There was some sorrow in his eyes, but Emma did not care. Because this man agreed to the whims of a guy with anger issues, she and Paul were put in a situation neither of them had any say about, and knowing Paul, he would probably be terrified and extremely anxious. The wizard in front of her was the reason this was happening and deserved no sympathy.

“Why not?” 

“Because I was in his debt,” the wizard said. “He saved my life and therefore, I had to do him a favor when he asked. I could not refuse in good faith, though it was and still is a bad idea.” He looked directly at Emma. He knew that she could not forgive him. He did not seek her forgiveness, though - he merely wished she understood his reasoning so she could not hold that against him. “But I could keep him company. I could stay by his side, keep him in check, keep him from drowning in his loneliness and sorrow. Because I knew that if he was left alone, he’d already have ended up in the river, or with a blade in his abdomen because he couldn’t handle the loneliness, the waiting forever, until the day he realized she wouldn’t come.” 

Silence followed. His goal had been achieved. Helping a friend out with bad ideas is a good thing, though enabling him to do something as stupid as this redemption road was not good nor excusable.

Neither of them spoke for a little while, recovering from the conversation that had just transpired. And then, a thought popped up in Emma’s head, one that possibly just presented her with a loophole in this entire scheme.

“That road is meant for his ex-girlfriend, right?” Emma asked him.

He frowned at this question. Had he not just explained all of this to her? Did she need a reminder?

“Yes, it was intended for her,” he said. 

Emma clapped once in her hands. That was great news, especially to her plan.

“Then you shouldn’t help my friend,” she said, getting more excited about the solution every second. “It’s not made for him. Get us out of here, you can keep the rings. I swear we won’t tell anyone.”

He looked at her and recognized her excitement. Maybe that is why he did not answer right away - he wanted to be on her good side, for as much as that was possible, and constantly bringing bad news was not a good sign of trying to make her at least trust him, since she could not trust Rohan after he kidnapped her.

“I am afraid I cannot do that,” he said with a heavy heart. The grin that had formed on Emma’s face was destroyed instantly.

“What?” She could not say anything else and only shook her head. 

“Once people go through the portal, they have agreed to walk the road in full. They will finish it, or will die trying.” As he spoke, fear overwhelmed Emma - fear for her life, fear for Paul’s life, fear that nothing would go back to normal, that they would live this nightmare forever. 

“Do not worry,” the wizard continued. “If your true love, your friend, makes it here, those lost on the road will be able to go home with you. If anyone else makes it to you, you are allowed to go home, but you leave the fallen behind.”

That was not so much good news, but it was comforting. If Paul made it to her, they can go home. Fair enough. But why did the wizard also mention other people and involved them in the scenario?

“What are you…” Then it hit her. Her eyes widened. “Are there more out there for me?”

The wizard nodded, now feeling for her even more than before. 

“Your rescue party consists of seven people, including your friend,” he said, “but don’t despair. It’s… not nice to know more friends are in danger. But this road is best beaten when more people walk it together. It is a battle of the mind, a judgment of the soul. If you go alone it will be extremely hard, though not impossible.”

She didn’t care that Paul might have had a harder time if he went in alone. She only cared that others, possibly strangers, and probably some of his friends, were also involved now. And they went through the portal, so they weren’t able to go back or refuse to help. This wasn’t good news. Yes, Paul had help. But if the other succumbed to the road, how distressed would Paul be? Would he still have the strength to go on if too many people were lost on this deadly road?

“Can I offer you some tea?” the wizard then asked her. He’d stood up from his seat and looked at Emma. He figured she may be thirsty or might want something to calm down with. But Emma shook her head. 

“No, thanks.” She wasn’t feeling hungry. She wasn’t feeling like accepting anything the wizard would offer her. First, she needed the time to process all the information he had given her. She needed to take a minute, or even an hour, before she’d be able to completely come to terms with everything.

“If you need anything, you can just ask me,” the wizard told her. He took a couple of steps towards the double doors through which the knight Rohan had left but stopped after the fifth step. He turned to Emma. “My name is Jorick, by the way.”

Emma nodded at him. “Emma.”

It was good to know his name. It was much better to refer to him by his given name instead of thinking of him as the nameless wizard who was helping her out. Giving him her name was not a liability, either - he would appreciate her not remaining a nameless victim and maybe could put in a good word about her with Rohan. Even though that was not very likely.

“Nice to meet you, Emma,” Jorick said in a sympathetic voice. “I am so sorry that you and your friends were caught up into this mess. You are free to go as you please. So long as you don’t leave the castle or enter my room or Rohan’s, you should be fine and Rohan won’t needlessly be furious with you.”

He again made his way to the exit out of the hall.

“Wait.” He turned to face Emma again. There still was one question that she needed an answer for. “What happens if nobody comes for me?”

Jorick remained silent for a little while and released a deep breath. 

“I will bring you home,” he said solemnly. “And I will be sorry for the loss of your friends.”


	11. Snakes and ladders

The first half-hour was stressful. The second half-hour made clear this was not going to be a quick rescue.

The journey consisted mostly of walking up to that point; first through meadows rolling down the hills, then through the forest of the valley. Both sights were pretty, though Paul could not enjoy any view. Behind every tree and bush, right off the path, something dangerous waited for them. Around every corner could be something that Paul may not be able to handle, something that could end their journey before it could even properly start. Despite the nerves, Paul powered through and continued to take each step, taking deep breaths and trying to keep his mind on Emma. So far, that worked.

When they came into the second hour of their journey, some started to wonder how long this was going to take. And one of the members of their rescue party was quite vocal about it.

“This is taking too long,” Ted said.

Paul sighed audibly, shaking his head once. This was not a pleasant way to go about their way.

“I know,” Charlotte responded. 

“Shouldn’t we have come across something yet?” Ted wondered out loud in one of the most annoying voices Paul had ever heard come out of his mouth.

“Not yet,” Alice said. “Probably later.” Maybe she’d hoped it would shut him up; she was not as familiar with Ted’s persistence and tendency to annoy, especially when he was bored out of his mind, such as right now.

“But if—”

“Ted,” Paul said, raising his voice a little. He’d stopped and stared at Ted, begging with his eyes, trembling slightly from the stress. “Please, shut up.” He then turned around again and continued his way. He did not see Ted’s reaction. 

Ted looked incredibly indignant. In this state, shutting up was not an option. He needed to speak, needed to distract himself from the extremely boring surroundings.

“It’s okay that you speak,” Charlotte then said, to diffuse any arguments Ted and Paul might have had if Ted had escalated it. “But speaking your mind won’t make us reach Emma faster.”

Ted stared at Paul’s back for a few moments, then relaxed and sighed briefly. She was right. But talking maybe make this journey pass by just a little faster, until they reached the first obstacle on their way.

“I know, but we’ve been walking for, what, half a day now? And we still haven’t seen anything yet.”

He was not wrong, technically. Though the time frame he stated was an exaggeration, they had been walking for long enough that they should be encountering something already, unless this first part was meant to be long, winding, boring, and they were supposed to do this quickly… in which case they needed to pick up the pace. 

“Hey, Paul,” Ted continued, “Are you sure this road is as dangerous as you perceive it is?”

“It has to be,” Paul said out loud, not looking at Ted. He did not want to give his co-worker any more attention than is needed, especially since he needed his time to try to calm down just a little, so that others may not see him trembling so hard.

“Why?” Ted wondered. “So you can be right?”

Paul took a deep breath, in and out, and balled his fists. _This isn’t necessary. This_ _isn’t going to_ _be great._ Especially if Ted decided to press on.

“Ted,” Alice said in defense of Paul, hoping that by sneering his name he’d stop. Of course that didn’t work. He was getting the attention of more and more people and he was loving the distraction from the boredom he’d been dealing with since they left the arch behind.

“Just saying, what if nothing happens?”

“But the words on the arch and the poem—”

“Could be decorative,” Ted argued, glancing at Alice. “Someone must have really liked the meaning of it. And those sins! Lust, anger, whatever the hell they are…” When he couldn’t think of the other names, he just threw shrugged and threw his arms dramatically into the air. “I don’t know, I didn’t come up with them.”

Alice decided that the best way to answer was to not answer at all and thus, she turned her back to him and joined her father again. Charlotte grabbed Ted's arms and held his hand, walking beside him, hoping that if she kept him close, he would not be able to provoke anything else. And Paul tried to take even deeper breaths. He stretched out his hand in front of him, close to his chest, so that his friends behind him wouldn’t see it. It was trembling terribly and Paul could not do anything to stop it. He quickly balled it to a fist again.

But Bill noticed, even from looking at his friend’s back. He, along with Alice, walked a little faster, passed by Charlotte and Ted, and approached Paul.

“Hey,” Bill said. Paul nearly literally jumped up, as he hadn’t expected Bill to come this close and to approach so silently. Bill hadn’t been silent, however - he’d only not noticed because he wasn’t paying much attention. 

“Are you okay?”

“I’m…” Paul shook his head. “I’m not.”

Bill placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder and softly squeezed it. “It’s going to be okay.”

Paul nodded at first, but then shook his head again. He knew Bill meant well, that he was trying to make him feel better or at least calm him, but Paul wasn’t buying it.

“How do you know?” Paul asked him. “I’m not trying to bring you down or anything, I just… Emma is at the end of this, dangerous things will be on our way and Ted can’t stop talking.” He suppressed the urge to turn his head and glare at Ted. 

“You don’t need to listen to him,” Bill told him. Paul sighed.

“It’s kind of hard when his voice is the loudest.” And it was. Whenever they were in a group and they were all talking, it was always Ted who spoke the loudest, who wanted to be heard by those he talked to and those who didn’t want to listen to him at the moment. Similar situation, different location. 

In the meantime, Tom and Becky, who were walking a little ahead of the group, had noticed Paul’s distress. Tom, despite being worried, figured Paul would be able to cope with it. Becky, on the other hand, had seen this kind of distress and anxiety before. As a nurse, she could not turn away from this without at least trying to calm down Paul. She turned around and walked to him, stopping him and subsequently, the rest of the group.

“Paul, deep breaths,” she told him. “You’re too stressed.” 

“How can I not be?” He immediately answered. “My girlfriend…” He stopped there, swallowing once. Many emotions flashed across his face in seconds, until it eventually settled in sorrow and hopelessness. 

“I just wanted to be able to call her my girlfriend,” he then said softly to nobody in particular. Again he was overwhelmed with guilt for this mess. And for what? A label that Emma didn’t even want? A romantic moment between the two of them? A little bit of security? The last one was off the table now. 

“It’s nothing special,” Becky replied, rubbing on his back.

“Nothing special?” Paul repeated. He hadn’t understood the nuance of Becky’s answer. And even if he could, he wouldn’t while he was in this state. “If we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend, then what are we?” 

“Then you’re still in a relationship,” Becky said. Paul turned his head to her, finally, and frowned. His breathing has stabilized a little, though it still was fast. Becky sighed. “I know you like labels. I understand. But having or not having a label doesn’t change anything physically. It doesn’t limit what you can or can’t do with another person. Emma won’t suddenly love you more or less, or even treat you differently because of a label.” She moved her hand from his back to his shoulder and looked at him with the most self-assured and sympathetic look she could muster. “All that matters is that she loves you and you love her. No label will change that. Okay?” 

“I…” Paul did not know what to say. He did not know what to think or feel. He only knew at that moment that he probably should consider it. His mind jumped to the example Ted and Charlotte - co-workers, lovers, now officially dating. Sharing a bed and having sex, even while Charlotte was married to Sam. They never had that label and did as they pleased. 

He never thought he’d ever believe he’d have to take an example from Ted.

“Just relax a little,” Becky then said. He had calmed a little, but his body and mind were still tense. Ted had wanted to say something, but Tom had managed to shut him up with just one scary look. At least, Ted had perceived it as scary.

Paul shook his head. “I can't.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s…” He closed his mouth. It’s a lot of things and not much at once. It’s many different challenges that could all be classified under the common denominator of the knight. He still expected that man to show up again and make their journey a living hell. 

“Because it’s dangerous?” Becky wondered. Paul nodded. Yeah, it could be explained as such. Dangerous.

“But it’s not dangerous right now,” Ted said.

“It will be,” Paul reacted. “Something will happen, that knight will show up, I know it. We…” 

“Paul, listen to me,” Becky interrupted him. She spoke with such a stern voice that Paul had no choice but to shut up and listen. “Experience has taught me that constant stress is not good for you. I, too, used to worry about what was to come, and it made me sick. Physically.” She paused. Paul did not know the extent of what Becky had suffered, but he knew enough to know that her life must have been so needlessly stressful. Becky quickly swallowed, took a deep breath, and looked at Paul again. “Months and years won’t compare to one day or a couple of hours, but… try to relax. Enjoy the view. Distract yourself, if possible. When something does happen, you can be stressed. Otherwise, you’re just needlessly exhausting your body when you’ll need the energy later.” 

Paul realized that she was right. Especially that last point - they had been walking for an hour or two, based Tom’s watch, that still was showing the time in Hatchetfield. If that was the norm… two hours between each obstacle, and seven obstacles, without the time needed to conquer these obstacles, made it so they would be on their way for a projected fourteen hours. Maybe sixteen, counting the extra two hours between the last obstacle and Emma. He was burning through energy, worrying about everything and anything that could happen. But he could be exhausted when he needed it, if he kept this up.

Paul nodded weakly. “Good point.” 

Becky smiled at him. “Talk to your friends. They can distract you.” 

Paul had continued nodding. “Okay.” 

After this small break, which some of them took by sitting down on the gravel path or the foliage around the road, they could continue to walk down the road again. Paul walked closer to his friends now, instead of choosing to isolate himself. Ted belonged to that group, but his friends shut him up whenever his comments bordered on pestering Paul or commenting on the perceived danger levels. Becky rejoined Tom at the head of the group, the two of them leading by five or so yards.

“Is he alright?” Tom asked when they started their journey again. Becky shook her head. 

“No,” she answered, “His anxiety is…” _off the charts_. So high that Becky couldn’t with certainty say whether he ever knew any rest, or if the stress was such a normal part of his daily life that a low level of stress was his normal.

“Do you think we’ll need to distract him later?” Tom then asked. He turned his head to glance at Paul. He could be a liability. 

He shouldn’t think that way. He shouldn’t think like that about Emma’s friend, especially in such a stressful situation. But he couldn’t help it - if his anxiety and stress would hinder their progress through the journey or would cost them something, such as time or maybe a member of their party…

He shouldn’t think like that.

“Maybe,” Becky responded.

Great. That did not clear up anything.

“Let’s hope he won’t be this stressed throughout the day,” he said, in a low enough voice so that Paul wouldn’t hear it.

So far, it seemed Becky’s words and the distraction from his friends were working. While he still seemed anxious, many of his micro-actions were no longer frantic. No longer as nervous as they had been before. He trembled but less so than before. 

_Good. Keep that up._

The road took a sharp turn to the right. When they walked around it, the first anomaly on their way came into view.

“What the hell?” Ted commented when he saw it.

He wasn’t kidding or exaggerating this time. The group stood before a rock wall that they definitely had not seen when they looked over the valley, back at the arch. Tom estimated that it was thirty yards high: a steep white rock with metal rungs that have been hammered into the wall at regular intervals. An adult should be able to climb it, though there was no other support outside of the rungs. There also was no way around the rock wall. At the ground, some outlier foundations stretched out on either side of the road. They could not climb the slippery rock and way back, the foliage was too thick to traverse. They needed to climb up the rungs, to the top of the rock.

That was already intimidating enough. But the snakehead with bared teeth, as tall as a human, carved into the rock right next to the first few rungs, might be a metaphorical display of the danger ahead.

“Is that… a ladder?” Alice asked about the rungs. Many nodded in confirmation. 

At first sight, it taunted the group. None of them were happy to see this, especially because of its daunting height, and none of them wanted to go up there. Even Tom, who had seen worse, did not feel comfortable in this situation and even feared it. Was it because of their strange situation? Was it the world making them more afraid of something that, if done right, only made them fear for what was coming next.

“I don’t trust this,” Paul said out loud. Tom silently agreed with Paul. This, though dangerous, couldn’t just be it. He did not know much about history or magic, but he was certain that rock climbing - at least in the way it was presented before them - did not exist when knights ran around in Europe. 

Now only one question needed to be answered.

Who would go first? 


	12. Invidia

Ted was the first to climb up the ladder in the rock wall. Not because he voluntarily decided to go first, in a brave attempt to make the others feel capable of doing this. When the group was deciding to send someone up there, Ted made some remarks that made Tom decide that Ted should go first. Ted had asked Tom why he wouldn’t go first instead; Tom had decided to go as one of the last so that anyone who may not be brave enough would not be left behind and he could encourage them to go before him. 

Ted grabbed the first rung and paused. It was cold to the touch and uncomfortable. It radiated onto him, but not while he was in the vicinity, but because he touched it. The cold rapidly spread through his arm, and number his fingers and wrist. This did not hinder Ted in any way, but it did annoy him.

He climbed up the first rung. He found that standing on the rungs would not be a serious problem - at least, it wouldn’t be for him. He could stand on them comfortably to rest if he had to, and he wouldn’t see himself slipping on the rungs as he progressed. 

Despite his feelings that things would be fine, that this was as easy a task as they were going to get today, he was still careful. He tried to make it look like he was having no trouble, but he was dying a little inside every time he had to let go of one rung to reach for a higher one, every time he lifted a foot to find his grip on the next rung. And yet, he climbed on steadily and before he knew it, he was already halfway. Not that he realized it - he kept his eyes on the rock in front of him, or looked up, but never dared to look down to see how far he’d already come.

From the ground, it seemed like he was doing fine. Of course, they realized just how scared he was, but it did not show from up high. He just climbed up at a steady pace.

“He’s doing great,” Bill said, his eyes fixated on his friend. Paul, who stood next to him, nodded. 

“So will you,” Paul told him. He placed a hand on Bill’s shoulder. “You can do it.”

Bill, with his fear of heights, should not go last. He would take the longest over the climb and might be tormented the most from this obstacle. And Paul, worrying and hoping his friend would do this, briefly forgot about his own worries. Together with the rest of the group, they watched Ted.

He stopped. When he was only a couple of yards away from the top, at the same height where a piece of rock flattened out next to the rungs, providing space for one person if they were sitting. Ted was staring at it.

“What is he doing?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” Paul answered, and his friends could not definitively answer this question either. And, in silence, they hoped he wasn’t just pulling a stunt.

Eventually, Ted climbed the last few meters and pulled himself up, freeing himself from the rungs. For a few moments, he disappeared out of sight; he may be lying on the ground beneath his feet, thirty yards high. Then, his head appeared over the edge and shouted at them something that resembled: “There’s nothing to it.”

The group sighed, some more sarcastically than others, and they looked at one another.

“There’s nothing to it,” Tom repeated cautiously, staring at the rock wall. He couldn’t shake the feeling something could still go horribly wrong with the others. Paul had the same feeling.

The first to follow Ted upwards was Bill. The sooner he’d get it over with, the better. He went about it slower than Ted had and even paused at the same spot that Ted had paused, but he, too, reached the top. Charlotte came next, and then Alice, and with each person that braved the ladder made out of rungs hammered into a rock wall, the illusion that this first obstacle was dangerous started to crumble. That everyone who had climbed up stopped at the same spot did concern those remaining on the ground. Tom, Paul, and Becky would find out what was going on up there when it was their turn to climb.

It was up to Paul now; Becky was still uncomfortable in the situation, but there was no doubt that she was brave enough to climb up the ladder if she would go last. The same could not be said about Paul. 

“You can do it,” Tom told him. “It’s just a ladder.”

Right. Just a ladder, thirty yards or so high, with no safety measures should he lose his footing. 

“Okay.”

He had no choice, anyway, so he grabbed the first rung and shuddered. The cold spread from the rung to his arm, giving Paul another reason to not look forward to doing this. He took a deep breath.

“You can do this,” he muttered to himself and he started to climb. Slowly, he progressed, making sure that he either held a rung with two hands or stood with both feet on another one before making another move. And each time he moved, he repeated ‘you can do this’ to himself. After a while, he tried to close his eyes and do it by touch, but that thought was too terrifying. So he stuck with looking in front of him, at the white-gray rock that, when he ran his hand over it, felt so smooth that a giant cleaver could have hacked the other side off. If he fell, there was not even a nook in the rock he could hold on to. 

He quickly dismissed that thought from his mind. “You can do this.” He ascended further.

Paul did not know how high he’d come. He also had no idea he had reached the space where his friends had stopped. 

“Paul,” a familiar voice called from right next to him. “Paul!”

He looked aside in confusion - nobody should be calling for him from that position - and his heart rate jumped up.

On the small platform sat Emma, in the same outfit she’d been wearing when the knight had taken her away. She wasn’t smiling or glad to see him. No, she was pissed and Paul feared that, with her eyes trained on him, he was the cause of her annoyance. 

“Emma?” he muttered. He looked at her and shook his head. “You’re not real.”

She couldn’t be. She was in the castle. That knight wouldn’t plop her down at the first obstacle. She hadn’t been there before. If Ted, Charlotte, Alice, or Bill had seen her sitting there, they would’ve told him. The first task, of climbing a ladder up a rock, suddenly gained a new dimension. 

In the meantime, the cold radiated to his arm again, spreading so long as he held the rung.

“Like hell I am,” Emma responded. Paul had been wrong - she wasn’t pissed, she was furious, just moments away from exploding. He had never seen her like that. “Why aren’t you rushing to get to me?”

“I…” Paul stammered. That’s what he was doing! It just took time to cross a valley set up to slow down and take out those who try to cross.

“Because you can’t?” Emma said out loud. Paul did not answer. He could not answer - she spoke again before he could answer. “Of course you can’t. You’re stressed out of your mind, you stay away from anything out of your routine, and yet you came here. A recipe for disaster.”

That was true, but he didn’t need this to be vocalized to him. As he stared at her, not sure what to say, the cold climbed up his upper arms, having passed his elbows.

“You should turn around and go home while you can,” Emma told him plainly. It sounded like she cared. It was feigned - Paul knew what genuineness sounded like if it came out of her mouth. “Why don’t you let Tom do the dirty work? That’s a man who will get to the end without any problems.”

The cold had reached his shoulders now. He clenched the rung and it started to feel a little unstable. Or was that just his mind trying to tell him to move on already?

Paul looked away from Emma, his eyes focused on the rock. 

“You’re not real,” he said out loud. She was not real. This was a trick trying to get him to do… something. Or maybe to get him to think something. 

He needed to continue. But the image of Emma was relentless.

“Tom is brave, a veteran,” she said; “Tom has stared danger in the face. He’s a much better candidate for this journey than you could ever be. Go home.”

“No,” Paul said. He was not going home. He was going to her. He let go of the rung with one hand and grabbed the next. It provided immediate relief from the cold and Paul breathed out. This first step was everything he needed to continue his journey.

“You need to listen to me,” Emma said. If she’d placed a spell on him before, it wasn’t working anymore.

“You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not real.” He repeated the statement as quickly as he could while going up the ladder. He was not looking at Emma anymore, even trying to avoid catching her through the corner of his eye.

“Don’t you climb away from me!” She yelled at him. “Paul!”

“You’re not real,” Paul said, a little louder than before, and climbed higher. Five to six more yards higher, he finally had reached the top. Bill and Alice helped him climb over the ledge that Ted had to climb over on his own, and Paul lay down on his back. They had ended up in some sort of hole in the rock, that inclined downwards on the other side. About ten to fifteen yards of this part of the road was covered by a rock roof, and - as Paul noticed - the roof at the side of the ladder seemed highly unstable.

“Are you okay?” Bill asked him. Paul nodded.

“I will be,” Paul said.

If this was the first task, and this almost mentally drained him, then what would the other obstacles be?

* * *

At the bottom, Tom and Becky saw Paul struggle at the now common place right before the top of the ladder. The two watched Paul get over the edge at the top and then looked at each other. Who would go next?

“You can go,” Becky told him.

“Are you sure?”

“It doesn’t matter now, really. We just need to get to the top.”

Tom nodded. He leaned in and kissed her.

“I’ll see you there,” he said.

“Be careful.” 

Tom walked to the ladder and climbed up at a quick and regular pace, reaching the spot where the victims would see the image that would throw them off guard.

“What are you doing?”

It did not sound judgmental. It was only a shocked and worried tone, one that did not wish for any harm.

Tom stopped, as the others had, hit with emotional turmoil.

“Jane,” he whispered.

Jane Houston, née Perkins, sat on the ledge, wearing her favorite flower dressing and her hair up. One of the loveliest faces he’d ever seen and missed so much, and it was looking at him intensely, and he knew just how worried she was for him.

“This is dangerous, Tom,” she said softly, only barely audible. “Are you willing to throw your life away for someone else’s happiness?”

“She’s your sister,” Tom said. “She’s my sister-in-law.” That made her family. Not only did she remind him of Jane in some of the things she did, but she was his family now. That meant he’d fight for her, no matter the circumstances or the danger. Jane loved Emma so much - and if she were here, she’d join him and the others in this quest. 

“If you go through with this, she’ll have something you can never have again,” Jane said. “I love you, but you’re going too far.”

Alarm bells went off in his head. This wasn’t truly Jane, that much was clear, but those views did not align with what Jane would think. She had never been so… self-important. 

“I love you, too,” Tom told the image of Jane, trying hard not to tear up. “And I miss you. Don’t you want me to be happy now you’re gone?”

Jane nodded once, a sorrowful gaze trained on him. Tom could not look away while this numbness, this cold sensation crept up his arms and was close to reaching the shoulders.

“Becky Barnes,” she sighed in a slightly irritated manner. “She’s broken, Tom. You’ll never rest. You’ll always be on edge around her. You’ll always have to be careful, so she doesn’t fear you for the small things you may never know about. She doesn’t say, but she sees a lot of Stanley in you.”

Tom shook his head. “That’s not true.”

“Don’t you see?” Jane continued, leaning in closer to him. The wind played with her hair. “You’ll never get back what you once had. Unless…” She reached out her hand. “Stay with me, Tom.”

He wanted to. By God, he wanted to.

He wanted to believe he could get Jane again. He wanted to grab her hand again, feel her once again. Taking the hand would mean giving up on Emma and giving in to the idea that he could never have what Emma did have - her true love - unless he joined his late wife.

But it wasn’t _her_.

“I’m sorry, Jane,” he said, barely able to hold back tears.

Jane pulled back her arm and leaned back. The expression on her face changed; it became indifferent. She nodded at him, and Tom continued the climb. The cold, that had crossed his shoulder and was slowly making its way to his neck and chest area, faded when he let go of the rung that the others had also held while watching their loved ones on the ledge.

Once Tom had disappeared out of sight, it was Becky’s turn to climb the ladder. She did so with determination and at an average speed. Though she wasn’t really afraid of heights, she did feel herself become more anxious as she climbed higher than the trees among which she had found herself between until she started to climb.

Then she reached the specific rung the others had held on to and where they had seen someone, trying to plant an idea in their heads. And, as with the others, this was a familiar face with a familiar, irritating high-pitched voice. 

“Look who we have here, Becky Barnes!”

Becky stopped and turned her head. She glared at Linda Monroe, blood still dripping from the head wound, who seemed to be amused that Becky had come and did not even notice the blood. 

“Shut up,” Becky said.

The memories of Black Friday rushed back to her mind. She’d tried to suppress them, to cope with them, to come to terms with the fact that she now had killed two people. It was justified, but Becky hadn’t known about Wiggly being a creature from another dimension that tried to invade. She’d only known Linda Monroe found fanatic followers to adore her and Becky hadn’t wanted it to get out of hand, to turn violent, to turn towards Tom and those two girls. 

“Don’t be so rude,” Linda said indignantly. Becky shook her head. 

“Whatever you have to say, I’m not listening.” But she was. Whether it was her hatred for Linda Monroe or the shock of seeing her on that ledge and taunting her, she stayed around. And in the meantime, a cold sensation slowly climbed over her arms, going to her elbows.

“You should. I have the truth,” Linda continued. She leaned in closer and maliciously said: “Tom will never want you.”

“He already does,” Becky responded.

That could have been it. Becky turned her head away and prepared to continue the climb, but Linda’s annoying voice.

“No, he does not!” she screeched. “He thinks he does, yes, but you see, he’s lost his wife a year and a half ago. Time has passed, but that still hurts. Why do you think he’s pursuing you while he and his kid are still healing?” Linda left a dramatic pause but soon continued. “He’s hoping to fill that empty hole in his heart, but he can’t because you’re not her.”

Becky clenched the rung, her knuckles turning white.

“Shut up.”

“You’ll never be her,” Linda said, a smile appearing on her face. “How could you be? You’re nothing, you’ve accomplished nothing compared to the life Jane Perkins has lead. You are nothing. You never were and you’ll never be more than a pet project and a nice escape.”

It could be the circumstances. It could be this road, this world, and its magic, but she was compelled to believe what Linda Monroe was telling her. She knew it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t be true. But doubt was settling in and the cold spread from her shoulders to her neck and chest area. 

“Becky!” She looked up. Tom hung his head over the ledge, holding one hand to his mouth so that his voice could carry to her. “Becky, don’t listen. Come on up!” And he beckoned for her to climb higher. It wasn’t that much higher… only a couple of yards, and then she was with Tom.

“See?” Linda Monroe drew Becky’s attention again. “He’s trying to placate you. Don’t let that happen.” 

“C’mon, Becky,” Tom called out from above, but Becky did not look at him anymore. Linda held her attention.

“Do it, then,” Linda said boldly. “Be his replacement for Jane. Be the new Jane.”

“Becky!”

But Becky didn’t hear. If she tried to let go of the rung, she would find she couldn’t budge. Her hands were petrified, attached to the rung, that crumbled away by accelerated rust, her mind only on the comparison between her and Jane, as well as her newfound jealousy of Jane, which she’d never felt before and was only brought about by this obstacle.

The rung was completely eroded and fell apart before Becky could grab something else. She toppled over backward and fell.

Two screams melted together; Tom shouted her name in fear and shock, Becky screamed as she plummeted back to earth.

An impact never came. About halfway down, she disappeared in a puff of black smoke. 

Tom almost jumped in after her. Almost; Paul, Alice, Bill, and Ted barely managed to hold him back and pull him away from the ledge. 

“Stop it!” Ted shouted at him.

“Shut up!” Tom responded, nearly hitting Ted as he struggled to free himself. But everyone held on and held him back. If they were smacked in the face, it was worth it to keep Tom from going after Becky.

The initial anger eventually subsided when a low rumble sounded from above. Looking up, they noticed how the layer above their heads crumbled and was about to come down on them. The sound and urgency to get out of this cave with two ends grew every second. They didn’t need to hold back Tom; he retreated with them as the first rocks fell down and nearly hit them. The group only made it out in time before the roof came down. It caused a loud crack and dust came down with it. 

Once the dust settled, the group could see the result. The way back to the ladder was blocked off. At this point, nobody considered this to be a coincidence - not after the first temptation high up the ladder. The message was clear: you cannot go back, only forward. But what dangers would be waiting for them?

“Tom,” Paul said, looking at the man. “Are you okay?”

Tom did not answer. His eyes were fixated on the blocked way back. On the other side, Becky had fallen. Only Tom had witnessed this. The others just heard her scream and rightfully feared the worst.

He’d lost Jane, and now he’d lost Becky, too.

“I guess there’s only one way forward,” Ted broke the silence with none of the sarcasm or usual inflections. Like everyone, he was terrified. But he did freeze; instead, he took a couple of steps towards the road and then looked at the group. “We either stay here or just plow through this. I prefer to do the latter.”

Charlotte followed him, as did Bill and Alice. Tom did not move, which worried Paul.

“Are you coming?” Paul asked, careful not to provoke Tom in any way. Especially because Paul did not know if Tom was easily offended, angered, or annoyed in this state. But Paul had nothing to fear. Tom stood up and walked down the road. Nobody else tried to talk to him, for they wanted to give him the space he needed. 

“What do you think happened to her?” Bill asked.

Paul glanced at the blocked-off path behind them. Becky had fallen, that much was clear. But her screams had been cut off suddenly, without the big SPLAT that should have come with it. Something was off about this - something that Paul could not figure out. 

Why hadn’t he just gone to the beach to look for a shell?

“Honestly, I don’t know.”


	13. Elinor

Emma, after staying in the hall for a little while, allowed Jorick to bring her some tea and lead her to her room. It was on the second floor and was rather small; it contained just a bed and an old chair as well as a small window that looked out over the valley. Emma couldn’t see a large part of it, but she would be able to keep an eye on the treetops and hope that Paul and the others were doing great.

She’d asked Jorick how long she would have to stay here. He had no idea; he’d said this was the first time anyone came to the path and walked it, and as such had no idea how well they’d do or how long it would take them. If nothing happens, they should arrive at the castle at the very least tomorrow around noon. If they weren’t that fast, she may want to rest in the bed.

Jorick had left her in this room. For a while, Emma had stayed there and stared out of the window, letting her mind carry everywhere and nowhere.

No life seemed to be out there. It was quiet; no animal life thrived in the valley. She figured she would hear the wildlife even from the second floor. The only sign of life was a single hawk, flying around the castle. Emma was certain this was just the one hawk. It flew around aimlessly, never wandering too far away from the castle. 

Maybe she was lonely, too. Maybe she stayed close to the castle and its two inhabitants to feel a little less lonely. 

At least she wasn’t shy. The bird flew closer and closer and Emma shrieked, nearly falling backward. She’d believed the bird would attack her, with the speed and precision she came towards Emma. But the bird slowed down and landed on the windowsill. She looked curiously at Emma, studying her from head to toe and just staring at her.

“You’re smart, aren’t you?” Emma said when the initial fear had subsided. It could be her imagination, but maybe the bird had nodded. Or it had just moved its head in a way that Emma had identified as ‘nodding’.

“What do you do in a day?” Emma asked the bird. She’d been here since the creation of this world; she’d spent these days circling the men and circling the castle. 

Maybe to answer, more likely as an accident, the bird turned and flew away again, going off somewhere else.

Maybe Emma needed to do the same thing. Spread her wings, explore the castle and kill time in the meantime. She had the time to explore the castle before Paul and the others arrived, she might as well take her chance. Never had a word been uttered about walking around, about looking around the castle. She’d have to spend her time somehow. Besides, she wouldn't be long and there was only a small chance of being caught - there were only two other people, after all.

So Emma opened the door of her small room and aimlessly walked through the castle. She counted four floors, not including the many towers, and freely entered every room. There was a bit of anxiety - she didn’t know whether the room on the other side of the door was Rohan’s or Jorick’s, or if they were doing something inside. But luck was on her side and she did not encounter either of the two men.

She did discover a multitude of rooms, decorated and furnished as though many we're living in the castle. Up to three lavish bedrooms, a couple of servants sleeping quarters, an infirmary, a full kitchen, and a beautiful garden on a cliff-side which Emma had only seen from a window. Rohan was walking around in this garden; the hawk landed next to him and looked at him. He shooed the bird away; he did not want any company or just did not like the bird. Either way, he wanted to enjoy the time in his garden without the bird around.

Emma decided to avoid the garden, at least until Rohan had left it. For now, she continued with her journey through the castle.

While the rooms were furnished and seemed impeccable, they all shared one common aspect: dust. It looked nice, but the thick layer of dust on all surfaces indicated nobody ever entered these rooms.

This journey also led her to one particular room that was not furnished for a specific purpose. It was completely bare, for the exception of a large painting on the wall and a coat rack - or what Emma believed to be a coat rack - that was covered in a heavy blanket.

Emma looked at the painting first. The artist must have been a great painter to make the colors pop and present a lifelike image. The woman on the canvas was beautiful with her dark hair and stormy eyes, that were calm but could flare up in an instant. Her smile was wide and gorgeous. She sat at a table, on which one of her arms was lying, and looked nothing less than regal. The painter had used warm colors to set her apart from the darker backdrop of what Emma recognized to be the main hall. It was framed in gold, something Rohan must have paid for, and a single name at the bottom of the frame identified the woman as ‘Elinor’.

Was this the woman who broke Rohan’s heart? She had to be; it did not seem like Rohan had brought anything but what was absolutely necessary in this world. He still loved her; this framed painting reminded him of that love and, possibly, of the pain that she had caused him. For Elinor’s sake, Emma hoped that she never even tried to come back. Rohan still looked like a selfish asshole she could easily meet on the streets of Hatchetfield.

Then she turned her attention to the coat rack. She did not approach it; if she came any closer, she may want to pull the blanket off of it to see what it might be hiding. None of the other items in the castle, in unused rooms, were covered with these blankets, so there must be something under there that Rohan wanted to keep, but not see. It had to have a connection with Elinor, or else he may not have put it in this room.

The hawk Emma had first met in her room had found her. She flew in through the open window and landed on the blanket.

Emma tried to gently shoo her away. She did not want bird poop to be released on the blanket, because she could easily picture him blaming her for this event, even though she hadn’t touched the windows and the bird could have pooped on the covered coat rack any time she wanted in the past.

The hawk did fly away, her claws stuck in the blanket. The blanket was dragged off of the coat rack, causing a small dust storm in the room that made Emma cough.

When the dust had settled, Emma couldn’t believe her eyes. What she’d assumed to be a coat rack was just the torso of a mannequin on a pole, a lavish wedding dress carefully having been placed on it. Throughout the years, what used to be white now had become duller, to a grey-ish beige color. She imagined what it had once must have looked like. Despite the decoloring and not at all being her style, Emma had to admit it was a nice dress, perfect for the occasion.

But many more questions were revealed while answering the mystery of what lay under the blanket. She could understand the presence of the painting, but why this dress? Was this something that he had bought her to wear during the wedding day?

She doubted it. Rohan did not look like the type who would buy a wedding dress for his fiancé. He did not look like the type to be that thoughtful. So Elinor probably bought this dress herself.

Which was strange, considering everything that Emma had learned. If she hadn’t wanted to marry Rohan, she would not have gone out of her way to buy a dress - especially since she probably couldn’t count on Rohan to maybe get one for her. Did she really have that much money to spare for a dress she would never use?

This wedding dress was physical proof that Elinor must have had the intention to marry Rohan. If she truly came from a wealthy family, Rohan was probably approved by her parents or something. Maybe her parents had even sponsored the dress. Whether she really did love Rohan was still up in the air, but this… 

Emma could only think in hypotheses that may turn out to be wrong in the end. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that Elinor had intended to wear the dress and marry. And maybe, to avoid scandal, she may not have even run away.

Then why did she run away? Was she even a runaway bride, or did she have an accident? Was she held up? Rohan hadn’t looked further than her not showing up and it did not seem that Jorick had many chances to figure out what had happened to her. 

The story was wrong. Something, one detail, maybe two, was incorrect. Either because they were wrong or because these details were missing from the equation.

While she waited for Paul and the others to show up, she now had a goal to work towards; a mystery to solve. The mystery of the runaway bride and the wedding dress. She pulled the blanket back over the mannequin torso and left the room, out to discover the truth, if it could be found in the castle.


	14. Luxuria

Her scream echoed in his ears. Her fall was burned into his eyelids. No thought could distract him from the horror he’d witnessed. So he mindlessly lumbered on, trailing behind the group, his mind replaying that moment over and over again.

How could he not? He’d barely gotten over Jane yet. 

It should’ve been him in the driver’s seat. Jane should have made it out of there. Tim needed his mom.

With Becky, he found a new mother figure; someone to look up to, someone who treated him like he was her own child. She’d never had kids with Stanley - she didn’t want to carry his baby to term, didn’t want a son or daughter who had the potential to be like him, or to be beaten by him.

But she’d fallen. And Tom, once again, had been the witness who should’ve done something to make sure she got out of it.

He should’ve climbed down. He should’ve pulled her up, taken her with him to the top. He shouldn’t have stayed there. He should’ve seen that whatever vision Becky was seeing was strong enough to keep her there until she’d fall.

All those _should-haves_. Never the _dids_. 

Tom had never hated heights more.

They hadn’t seen it. They didn’t understand when he said she vanished, disappeared. They heard the scream that was cut off, no splat. Tom saw how she went up in a puff of smoke halfway down. They believed she must have died for real - it sure felt like it to Tom.

Not seeing it happen had changed the dynamic. Where before, they were chatting with one another or distracting Paul, they were silent. The reality of this world had crashed on them. This road was not silly, but deadly. 

You’d think they’d learned their lesson when Wiggly had come. An ugly doll the adults fought over - silly, but deadly. The knight, while not silly, going to a different world where he ruled reminded them of the doll that tried to take over the world. This was different, after all. They came to the world. They actively participated. They weren’t dragged along by the desire to fill a hole with a doll. Death had never even crossed their minds. 

Now their group was traveling with one less person, painfully obvious to all, painfully obvious another one of them could be the next.

Paul's mind was going into overdrive. They had come here with seven. There were seven of those sins on the arch, mentioned in the poem as well. If each obstacle led to the demise of one of them, would the others still have the strength to go on? Would they even reach Emma? Seven people for seven sins; if the last of them would face the last sin and lose, what would happen to her?

Paul did not want to entertain the thought any further.

Instead, he took a good look around the group. Alice and Bill were walking a little more closely to one another. The same was true for Charlotte and Ted, who left no space between the two of them, a hand around their shoulders and holding each other’s other hand. And, much like Paul, Tom was walking on his own. His eyes were empty, his gaze on something just out of sight. He trudged forward without any real goal, other than trying to stay close to the group.

Paul stood still for a second and then walked up to Tom. None of the others stopped him; they figured he’d try to talk to Tom. They had no idea if Paul would succeed - he was socially awkward around acquaintances, after all - but he could at least try since the others did not want to do this. 

Tom did not even acknowledge Paul. 

“Tom—”

“No.”

Paul did not attempt to make contact a second time. 

The road twisted downwards, to one of the lower points of the valley. The forest was thinning a little, the trees and bushes spared the others a little more space. Sunlight broke through the canopy, lighting up the environment. 

And in view came one of the strangest things they could have seen, something none of them had expected. 

A large plot of land had been fenced off with some old, black Victorian fencing. One open gate provided access to the piece of land, which was a brilliant and beautiful garden. Every square foot was covered with the greenest and brightest grass, and colorful flowers dotted the area. One gravel path, not too wide, ran through this garden, of which they could not see the other side. The trees seemed better cared for than those outside the fence, healthier and overall more beautiful. Cat statues in many sizes were lined up around the path at different points, and another one on a pedestal near the entrance. 

One small notice board stood outside of the fence, almost invisible against the dark brown color of the ground. In faded white letters, it said ‘ _do not walk on the grass_ ’. If they did not know better, they wouldn’t have thought that this board had been placed there specifically to be ignored. It was the first semblance of any rules in this world, yet it was elaborately placed and if they weren’t so weirded out by the difference between this world and the mini-perfect world inside the garden, they may not have even noticed. 

“What is this?” Ted said in a low voice, as if speaking any more loudly would break the somber mood they had been, as if this would shield him from harm. Illogical, but Paul was somehow feeling the same way.

“I’m guessing the second obstacle.”

“A garden?” Alice asked, a little louder than before.

“We’ll see when we enter,” Paul said nervously. He glanced at the notice board. “And stay off the grass. I don’t trust this.”

Paul nodded his head in the direction of the garden. All cat statues had wide smiles on them, unnaturally wide in his opinion. Almost like the Cheshire cat. The gravel road was the only “imperfect” thing and most unappealing within the boundaries of the garden. The grass was too green - too bright, too close to yellow for his own comfort. Everything in his mind screamed at him not to enter the garden.

But they had to. When they turned around, they found that the road they had just walked on had overgrown in a matter of minutes; the ground foliage consisting of small bushes and grasses now covered where they’d previously walked. If they hadn’t just walked over it, they wouldn’t have believed there was a road. The only way they could go was the road ahead. Through the garden. And, so it seemed, past some people in white clothes? 

Had they been there before?

They’d waited long enough. Tom believed this. He walked past the others of the group, opened the little fence gate, and started to cross the garden. Paul, feeling that nobody should enter this on his own, immediately went after him, trying not to be too far away from Tom, should he need help. Then Alice and Bill followed, and the line was closed by Charlotte and Ted, who wouldn’t even close the fence behind him. They walked carefully, ready for any kind of danger waiting ahead, wary of anything.

They couldn’t see the end. The garden sloped upwards, located on a small hill. The other side would probably lie on the other side. 

But then they’d have to safely pass them.

Them. People. Not quite normal, though. They were dressed in white clothes and, without an exception, every one of them was stunning. Beautiful women and handsome men from all ethnicities, of all hair and skin and eye colors, were legion. They seemed to sparkle lightly in the sunlight, like the vampires from Twilight, but as they came closer into view, it was just a piece of the group’s imagination. They walked barefoot, seemed to float over the grass the Hatchetfielders were not allowed to walk on. These beautiful people, nymphs, had brilliant eyes and did not have any bad side; the sunlight always portrayed them in a flattering way.

And these nymphs had their eyes on the guests.

They stayed away from the group for a while. They watched from a distance, casting smiles and glances and sometimes walking along a little while. They did not do anything but distract the Hatchetfielders. If that was their only job, they were doing it well. Paul cast suspicious glances their way, Alice was interested as well, and Ted could not keep his eyes off of them. Charlotte was not happy with how happy Ted was with the attention from these beautiful strangers.

The nymphs came closer as soon as they descended the hill. The end was in sight - further down, an open fence gate provided an exit from the garden. They wouldn’t have to waste time trying to open it. Paul could already feel the awkwardness from that imaginary situation; trying to leave, but fumbling with the lock and not being close to opening it and getting even further away because your fingers get sweaty and you can’t get a good grip on the lock; in the meantime, those nymphs are watching you, burning holes in your back, or doing worse.

Why was he even thinking of that? They had a bigger problem than one that practically did not exist. 

The nymphs had been waiting for the right moment. That moment was now. Like a calm swarm, they descended on the group of six, coming closer and closer and growing bolder with every step they took. Careful smiles and glances turned into nearly invading personal space, wide loving grins, and almost too much attention to be healthy.

Even though a minimum of four different female nymphs tried to seduce him, Tom did not pay attention to any of them. One of them set a foot on the gravel, stood in his way. Tom stopped, which caused everyone behind him to stop as well. The nymphs grinned triumphantly - but the grin disappeared when she saw the emptiness in his eyes. She let him pass without much trouble, and the others let him pass. There were still five others. 

While this was going down, some other nymph tried to same to Paul: blocking the way. Unlike Tom, he couldn’t stare her into oblivion. He tried to go past her, but she moved along with him.

“Can you move, please?” He asked her. He didn’t want to have to go around her and accidentally step on the grass. She had started frowning at him and looking at him as if she were dissecting his psyche. She probably was. At the end of the short evaluation, though, she cleared the way for him. He respectfully nodded at her, as a quick thank-you, and rushed behind Tom.

Paul failed to see what sin this was supposed to represent. If he’d been last in line, he would have noticed the trouble the others were in and what they were dealing with.

The nymphs paid no attention to Bill - he was susceptible to their charm and a target, but all of that faded when he saw Alice and one of the girl nymphs leaning in a little too close to one her. Much to Alice’s chagrin, Bill told every nymph off with the generic “don’t come too close”, “let’s keep moving,” “don’t even think of it”. Alice did not see the harm - or the circumstances or the garden clouded her mind and made her unable to see how this could harm her. With one of Bill’s hands perpetually on her shoulder, they descended the hill and approached the gate.

These nymphs have had the most luck with Charlotte and Ted. The mousy woman who just wanted love from a man - any man, so long as he treated her right - and the man who would take any chance to get some action between the sheets. Nymphs flocked to them, charmed them, enthralled them. One of the men beckoned Charlotte to come with him, and he took a step backward. And Charlotte wanted to follow him - only one step and she’d leave the gravel path - but her conscience silenced her, chimed in at the right moment. She had Ted. She didn’t need this random man. While he was more attractive, she could not leave Ted so openly - she could not leave the security behind.

She turned her head to see him and her heart shattered. The same was happening to Ted. A pretty blonde - did they always have to be blonde? - had wrapped him around her finger; he giggled and only had eyes for her. she too retreated away from the path, seductively beckoning him to come closer. He did not care about where he stepped, or if he stepped off the path, or even if he was leaving someone behind. He was completely trapped into his own world and could only see the pretty girl whom he wanted to be with, and needed to follow her.

And Charlotte watched, heartbroken.

She already lost her man once because of a younger girl. she wouldn’t let it happen again.

“Hey!” she shouted. It drew the attention of Bill, Alice, and Paul. Ted wasn’t listening. Charlotte marched over to Ted and the nymph, such a rage in her eyes no-one had ever seen before. The nymph, sensing what could happen and unwilling to let go of her prey, grabbed Ted’s arm. 

“You take your hands off of my man!” She shoved the nymph away from Ted. The nymph let go of Ted and instead held on to Charlotte. She dragged Charlotte off the path, onto the unusually bright grass. 

As soon as her foot made contact with the grass, she went up in a puff of smoke, similar to what happened with Becky. 

Ted blinked a couple of times. He’d wanted to yell at Charlotte. He’d wanted to tell her to leave him alone. Then she disappeared, turned to smoke, and all of that was promptly forgotten. He barely registered her disappearance. Why did he even want to be that mean? Why did he allow himself to think like that?

Where was Charlotte?

She was gone. With this realization, the nymph that had seduced Ted had lost its prey, and she was pissed off.

And in a matter of seconds, all nymphs were pissed off. 

They needed to leave. Right now.

Paul put his hands to his mouth. “Ted, let’s go.” But he didn’t wait up - the beauty of the nymphs was overshadowed by their anger, their willingness, their need, want to grab them and take more people than just Charlotte. Paul ran to the exit, where Tom had already trudged forward. He didn’t seem to notice what was going on behind him. Hopefully, Ted would listen.

Ted was not listening. Luckily, Bill had heard it. While Alice sprinted to the exit on her own, Bill leaped forward, grabbed Ted’s wrist, and pulled him forward. The first few steps were hesitant, but when Ted realized the danger he was in, he no longer needed Bill to drag him on.

The nymphs chased them, tried to pull them off the path, onto the deceiving grass. The group managed to avoid this fate and one by one, they ran through the gates.

They didn’t close the gate behind them. In their haste, this never crossed their minds. They didn’t need to - an invisible barrier stopped the nymphs from going anywhere beyond the fence. They did not halt their efforts; they were still staring, looking desperate, hoping one of them would return to their comforting arms and join their company. 

Ted looked on, with just as desperate a look in his eyes as the nymphs. As the short burst of adrenaline wore off, he looked around for Charlotte’s comforting eyes, but they weren’t there. They were left behind in the garden. 

Ted took a step towards it.

“Ted, don’t,” Paul said, stepping towards him. “You can’t go back.”

Ted turned to look at Paul. He never seemed so genuinely upset. 

“Why not?” he said softly. “Why shouldn’t I go back in there?”

“Because it’s not what she would’ve wanted.” Paul and Ted turned to Tom. He had returned to them when he had heard the ruckus. Ted could not appreciate this comment.

“You don’t know what she’d think!” he yelled at Tom. “You barely knew her!”

“But we can’t give up,” Tom told him calmly. “For Becky. For Charlotte. Because someone’s gotta make it to the end of this damn road.”

Ted did not have the energy to go against this - he could find himself in this. He almost pushed Paul out of the way, trying not to turn back to the nymphs and running into their arms. 

“Then let this fucking over with.”


	15. The message

While searching the rooms of the castle had been interesting and, to a certain level, fun and exciting, Emma soon found she’d searched all the rooms that weren’t off bounds. She accidentally discovered Rohan’s room, where the bedsheets had been ripped off, and Jorick’s, which was brim-filled with everything Emma believed you could find in a wizard’s room. She steered clear of those, closing the door as soon as she’d opened them, not wanting to tread any further. She did not want to anger the only two men she now had contact with. 

Well, the only man. She was pretty sure that Rohan was still furious for no apparent reason. That man was weird.

She found some paper and a feather with ink in one room. When she opened the ink bottle, she couldn’t believe her luck. The ink hadn’t dried; she could write something down.

What could she write, though?

A note. To Paul. 

It was better than sitting around and doing nothing. Yes, he may never see the note, but she also needed to put her thoughts on the paper before they consumed her. 

She clumsily took the feather and dipped it too far down the ink. It created some droplets on the otherwise unused paper and writing table. Now, what did she want to write to him?

_Paul._

Yes, that seemed like a good beginning of this note. She wrote it down.

_Paul,_

_I am fine. They’re keeping me in the castle._

Would he already know? Probably. But in case he did not know, she wrote it down nonetheless. 

Emma did not need to think too long about what else she’d wanted to tell him. The words flowed out of her feather, onto the paper. She did her best, given the circumstances, but all in all, she believed it was still rather readable. She wrote until there was no space left on the small piece of paper and put down the feather after signing it.

She stretched her fingers. She wasn’t used to writing with a feather and ink and it had caused her fingers to develop a little cramp. She was proud of her work - she was already glad she hadn’t tipped over the bottle of ink, she was glad the note hadn’t been ruined, she was glad she managed to finish this.

She carefully took the note into her hands, holding it with the tips of her fingers, careful not to tilt it too much and to let the second half dry some more. She scanned the lines for any errors, and read the message in full.

_Paul,_

_I am fine. They’re keeping me in the castle. If you make it, we can leave. Everyone lost on your way here will come back home with us. Be careful out there._ _This was made_ _for a vengeful man who couldn’t get over his girlfriend when she left him at the altar. I don’t know if this will help, but here you go. I’m sure you’ll do great, but please watch out. You_ _don’t need to_ _be anxious, you will succeed and I will_ _be waiting_ _here. I believe in you._

_Emma_

All in all, it wasn’t a very long note, but it contained every piece of information Paul would have to know about and what might comfort him enough not to be the anxious mess Emma imagined he’d be by now. He’d need all the strength he could muster, physical and mental, and he needn’t worry about her because she was safe. Which he didn’t know yet.

Though it wasn’t her intent beforehand, with each written word, she was more and more convinced to get this note to Paul. She had wanted to ask Jorick for help transporting the note, but he didn’t know whether he would help her out; after all, he may refuse her because Paul maybe wasn’t supposed to know as much as Emma did. 

This only left one unlikely option, one Emma hadn’t thought about until she heard the hawk landing on the windowsill and hearing her caw.

Of course. The hawk.

Emma didn’t need to call out for her. The hawk came closer to her, curious to see something she probably hadn’t seen either man do before; She watched curiously as Emma waved around the piece of paper to make the ink dry faster. Emma rolled it up once it had dried and then paused. She’d need a short piece of rope to be able to tie it to the bird’s leg.

And Emma doubted her plan. Would this work? Once she had tied the message to the hawk’s leg, she couldn’t take it off again. Would the bird be intelligent enough to deliver it to Paul? Would she even go to Paul to deliver it? Or would someone in the future see the bird, message on her leg, and read something they had no business reading?

But how else was she going to attempt to get this message to the man she loved?

She looked around the otherwise unused study and soon found a piece of rope, roughly as thick as her finger. It was just a little too long for its purpose; the sides would dangle a couple of inches when the hawk was in flight. Thought this could not have been very comfortable for the bird, she did not flinch when Emma tried to attach the message to her leg without hurting her, and without making it too loose.

In the end, Emma was satisfied with the work. It still looked a little wonky, but it was the best she could muster before the bird flew away, the message tied to her leg.

Was it weird to worry about not having explained to the bird what needed to be done? Was it weird she worried that hawk wouldn’t know what to do with it?

There was one thing she was certain of: that she worried at all was weird all on itself. It was a bird, after all - they couldn’t be expected to have the same capacity for intelligent thought that humans were capable of. That did not stop her from wishing, hoping that the message would eventually make its way to Paul, one way or the other, hopefully sooner rather than later.


	16. Acedia

“Do we have some food?”

It would be wrong to say that this specific phrase set Ted off. Anything anyone said that was vaguely targeted at him was going to get the same effect. Especially because he felt like mundane statements like this appeared to be nonsensical in his grieving mind. Who could anyone think of food when they needed to cross this valley as quickly as possible? They could eat when this was all over.

“No, we don’t,” Ted said loudly in his irritated voice. “We forgot to pack them before coming here.”

Bill halted for a moment, to possibly try to keep some distance between himself andTed. But in order not to get too far behind the group - who would wait for him if he asked - he felt he could only afford to hesitate for just a moment before continuing. The one extra step between him and Ted did feel good, even if it would not last long. 

“No need to be so aggressive,” Bill muttered under his breath, though it wasn’t silent enough. Ted, who was only a couple of yards ahead, had caught it.

“I’m not aggressive,” he said, turning his head to face Bill, who leaned back for as far as that was possible without stopping to walk. 

“It sure sounds like it,” Alice said in defense of her father. Ted rolled his eyes and stopped paying attention to the father-daughter duo. Bill shot a thankful glance at Alice. In turn, she nodded at him and the journey continued. 

But there was something Alice needed to say, something she needed to get off the chest. She hadn’t known how to bring it up yet, but now the delicate silence had been broken, she felt justified to start talking. 

“Paul?”

Ted came to a full halt and turned his body to her.

“What now?”

Surprised and scared by this action, she too stopped. Everyone stopped to see what was happening. Would Ted really yell at the youngest of their group, the only girl left in their group?

“She wasn’t talking to you,” Tom told him. Ted’s focus shifted from Alice to Tom, who just shook his head at the angry man. He sighed and only glanced at Alice, but he said nothing. Alice took her chance, before someone would say something again or before she’d 

“I just thought…” she paused. “we could talk about what sins we’ve already gone through.”

Bill put his hand on Alice’s shoulder.

“This isn’t the right time, Alice.”

“It never is the right time,” Paul said. “Not in here.” Not when the events that took Becky and Charlotte from them were still on their minds, when that was all they could think about, when they could only worry about the road ahead.

“What did you want to say?” Tom asked her. She nodded once.

“We just survived two sins. I think they were lust and envy.”

“Why envy?” Paul wondered out loud. He could see why she would believe - and he would believe as well- the garden would be related to lust (more so than envy), but what was her reasoning for assigning the action of climbing the ladder to envy?

“I don’t know what you saw on that ledge when climbing the ladder, but it tried to make me jealous,” Alice said in response. She did not sound so certain. Had Paul made her insecure about this with his question? “I think it was the same for everyone.”

It probably was. Paul couldn’t see it, though. Unless the illusion of Emma was trying to make him envious of everything that Tom was and what he represented. He glanced at Tom, and Tom glanced right back.

Had Tom’s illusion tried to make him jealous of Paul?

“It was,” Bill said, oblivious to the glanced exchanged between Tom and Paul. “It tried to do the same to me.”

“Right,” Ted sighed. He was just about done with this entire conversation. “Can we go on now we’ve cleared that up? Or don’t you care anymore?”

 _Just ignore it,_ Paul thought. And he managed to let Ted be. It did help to imagine telling Ted off.

Nobody responded to Ted. The conversation ended abruptly and they continued on their way, with Ted thinking he won the conversation, though there had been nothing to win. It was his only solace now that Charlotte had been taken from him, and he’d wished that the next obstacles would come soon, so that he may be able to go home and get away from this godforsaken world.

Ted had gotten his wish, but it was not what he’d expected. The next challenge was more subtle than the ladder and the garden. The road made a steep decline, but the ground around the road remained at the same height as before. It created walls on either side and led to an inevitable bottleneck for the third obstacle of this grueling journey.

The decline ended with two beautiful identical wooden doors, placed against a rock wall. Even in the decorative details, they did not differ from one another. There were a few inches between the two doors, a goat’s head was cut in the stone. If they ever doubted this was an obstacle, the sculpted head took those worries away. There was only one way to continue their journey, and that lay through one of these doors.

But which was the right one? And more importantly, what sin did this correspond to?

“Is this it?” Alice asked. She frowned at the obstacle, unsure what to make of it.

“I think so,” Paul answered.

“It’s better than the effort we’ve had to put in before,” Bill commented. This seemed nice and simple: two doors without too much physical effort, but something that most likely required some mental efforts from them. He glanced at the goat’s head and quickly looked away; it freaked him out. 

“We should still be careful,” Tom said, and Paul and Alice nodded.

“You’re kidding me, right? It’s just two doors!” Ted said. He shook his head while Tom raised his eyebrow at him. “This is too simple. It can’t just be two doors.”

But it was. At least, that’s what it appeared to be to them.

The real question was what lay beyond those doors, and if it was dangerous.

Tom was the first to take a step towards the door, gravitating more towards the left-hand door. Paul quickly followed him forward, towards the right-hand door. His mind jumped to everything and nothing at the same time. There were no instructions, no clear rules to obey, and thus no certainty that anything they may do would be allowed or punished. 

Tom grabbed the handle but did not open the door yet. Paul saw it as a good sign and mirrored him, taking the right door’s handle. At least they wouldn’t be punished for touching the wrong door.

“On the count of three?” Paul asked. Maybe they’d be punished for opening the wrong door. I hope it isn’t me. He shook his head once. I hope it isn’t Tom. He just hoped nobody would get hurt, but if one of them vanished, Tom may have the best chance of getting through the rest of this damned road. Better chances than Paul, anyway.

Tom nodded. “One, two…”

They simultaneously pulled open the door.

Generally, both Tom and Paul watched the same environment. The same trees with the same bushes and the same road winding upwards again. The rest, however, was completely different.

Paul immediately leaned backward. Behind his door, a storm raged on. The wind blew the heavy rain almost vertically and in every direction, including through the door. Leaves were torn off their branches, bushes were nearly leveled and only when lightning struck uncomfortably close to the door could Paul see further than a couple of yards ahead.

Tom, on the other hand, found a different world. One where the sun broke through the canopy and brightly lit up the road ahead. Birds were audibly chirping and a soft breeze made the branches and bushes dance. It was comfortably warm on the other side, accompanied by a pleasant breeze. Nice odors came from the colorful and plentiful flowers. Up ahead, the dirt road even seemed to be paved. In one word, the world ahead could be described as paradise.

Paul and Tom glanced at the contents behind the other’s doors. At the same time, they closed their respective doors again. Neither of them knew what they were supposed to do with the information just yet. Or that might be Paul projecting his thoughts onto Tom, who looked calmer than Paul ever could in these circumstances. 

They closed their doors and returned to the group again.

“That was weird,” Bill said. He, like Ted and Alice, had watched it happen from a distance and could see the jarring differences in weather through the doors, and this was quite strange to him. He had no idea where to look, what to think, what to do.

“Not any weirder than we’ve seen happen before,” Alice said cautiously. So far, a choice between sunny and bad weather seemed like a no-brainer. After watching Deb trying to make her feel jealous of Grace Chastity and watching Charlotte disappear into thin air, this difference in weather was not any stranger. 

“I vote for the sunny road,” Ted then stated. There was no way he’d want to continue the journey while being soaked and blown away by a thunderstorm. 

“Me too,” Bill nodded. He couldn’t see himself going through the rain when they could also go through paradise. Paul was leaning to that road himself as well, though he did not voice it yet. Something small tugged at the back of his mind, asking Paul to be cautious - _there has to be a catch somewhere._

“I don’t,” Tom said with conviction. He folded his arms and shook his head. Somehow, Ted saw this either as a personal attack on his choice or as Tom generally trying not to work with the rest of the group. 

“Really, Tom, why do you gotta be a buzzkill?” Ted said in an irritated voice. As far as he was concerned, everyone chose the sunny road, even if Alice and Paul hadn’t voiced their thoughts about the doors yet. 

“It’s common sense,” Tom told him calmly. “There are two doors, one with the most beautiful weather and another with a great storm. They’re actively discouraging us from taking the road with the horrible weather - so we should take that one.”

The _re’s the catch._ Paul could not put his finger on it, but now Tom had explained his point of view, Paul could find himself in it and knew almost for certain that ‘they’, the road or its makers, had tempered with paradise. But Ted, the stubborn mule, didn’t want to see it.

“I don’t believe it,” Ted said, shaking his head.

“Ted—” Paul couldn’t get another word out; Ted was too busy explaining his position.

“I don’t. Our choice here does not matter.” He looked at the entire group now and let his gaze rest on Tom. “We climbed a ridiculous height. Had to fend off some hellish creatures in the garden. This can’t be the next obstacle.”

“Even if it’s not, we should still treat it as one,” Tom responded. “So we won’t make any mistakes.”

“What, like Becky did?” Ted reacted. “Like Charlotte did?” 

Silence fell, and Paul could feel the tension between the two. Ted glared at Tom, who may be trying to hold back his anger. At least, that was what Paul guessed, based on Tom’s clenched fists and quick breath.

When Ted remained unopposed, he shrugged and shook his head.

“Forget it, I’m going.”

“Ted, wait, don’t!” Paul said, but it was in vain - he couldn’t stop Ted. He marched to the door leading to paradise, opened the door, and stepped over the threshold. 

Ted immediately relaxed as he took in the world around him. He let his shoulders hang, released his breath, and overall took on a calmer demeanor. He turned to the group again; even the storm in his eyes had calmed down and a faint smile had appeared on his lips.

“See? Nothing to worry about.”

Ted vanished before he could beckon the others to come to join him.

The door remained open. The warm breeze, the nice smells, and bright light had suddenly gotten a sour taste; paradise had shown its true colors as hell in disguise.

Tom was the first to approach it. He came closer and closed the door with a bang. He then opened the other door; the rain flew into his face and the lightning briefly illuminated his face. Without knowing what the consequence would be, though fully believing he would be okay, he stepped through.

For a few seconds, the storm raged on but it eventually died down. The climate morphed to match the one they’d been walking in so far. The storm had been just an illusion and had left no actual traces on Tom. He’d felt it, though they weren’t real. When the clouds had cleared and the route ahead was safe, Paul, Alice, and Bill followed behind him. 

When they had all passed over the door’s threshold, it swung close and disappeared, blending in with the rock it had been set into. Again, there was no way back - they just needed to go ahead.

They walked in silence, trying to process what had happened. None of them had particularly liked Ted, but now he too was just… _gone_. Vanished. Bill was close to tears, Alice was shaken, and Paul was just numb. He should be feeling something, anything - instead, he could only think of the dangers ahead. Instead, he only cared about seeing this through to the end.

Paul should be feeling something…

“Alice?” Tom asked, breaking the delicate silence that had been hanging between the final four. 

“Mm?” Her reaction was late. She hadn’t expected to be talked to - not at this moment, not that short after losing someone in their party, and especially not by Tom.

“What sin do you think this was?” he asked her. 

She took a moment to formulate an answer. 

“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. "It could’ve been pride. Could’ve been sloth. I’m not sure. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Tom said, showing her a compassionate and understanding smile. “Thank you for answering.”

“You’re welcome,” she responded.

They marched on, wondering what they could find ahead. They had had three obstacles, three sins; only four more to go. But which one would be waiting for them, and who would succumb then?


	17. Investigation

The message had been sent, but this was not the last thing Emma would be doing. Her mind still wandered around in the hallways, dreamt of doing something actually useful, something that could get her out of this place. Something that, preferably, did not include waiting around like a damsel in distress without doing anything herself. 

Jorick and Rohan had treated her like a lady. Rohan was a little harsher than Jorick, but it came down to the same attitude: she should wait for Paul to finish this road so that they could go home together. Though they hadn’t spoken about the possibility of a role reversal, it must not be on their minds. Emma believed that, if she’d been the one to talk back to the knight and say there was true love between her and Paul, she would still have been taken to the castle for Paul to come to her.

This made her feel like Jorick and Rohan did not believe she’d be capable of doing more than waiting and maybe taking a look around the castle to relieve her boredom. They not only looked right over her, but they also disregarded her, even if Jorick was friendly. She must be easy to overlook. She was small, yes, but the two men had lived in this castle together - and alone - for centuries. Though they had a guest, if they didn’t have their eyes on her, they may even forget that she was even around.

This meant that, while the two men were playing chess in the garden and only focused on their game, Emma would take her chance to look around Jorick’s room. She’d never been in a wizard’s room and the thought of taking a look there both excited and scared her. Maybe she could find something that would get her and Paul back home that did not involve Paul finishing a road he probably hadn’t wanted to walk in the first place. Even if she wouldn’t find anything, she’d have spent her time feeling useful. She’d be content to have done something instead of sitting around, watching out of the window like Jorick and Rohan probably imagined she was doing. 

Jorick’s room was located on the second floor of the building, Rohan’s on the first. She figured these rooms were in use based on the amount of dust that had built up on the door handles of rooms that hadn’t been entered since Rohan and Jorick moved in. Rohan had a master bedroom with double doors, while Emma estimated that Jorick’s room was smaller, located between two other rooms and only having a single door. 

Emma put her hand on the brass handle, and briefly worried about fingerprints. She expelled the thought almost immediately - if the men even knew about fingerprints, they probably would never think to check their door handles for foreign fingerprints because of their loneliness.

She took another moment to gather her courage and pushed down the door handle. The door swung open easily, another sign that the room had been used more often than other rooms. 

A small window, one of the few covered with dark curtains, looked out over the valley, but now a candelabra lit up the room. The wall on her right was covered in bookcases filled with books and manuscripts. If these were scholarly works, Emma figures they were only leisurely reads for Jorick, who must’ve studied everything in the time that he waited for someone. She took a couple of books from the shelf, trying to look for something that could help her beat the path and send another message to Paul. However, the writing was extremely stylized and hard to read at times and the topics could only be properly understood if the reader was in the know, which Emma wasn’t. She decided to try something different.

On the right side of the room stood his made bed, a cauldron, and his writing desk. Emma was drawn to the desk, on which a letter was placed. She did not need to touch the letter. Jorick had opened it and had placed it on the desk. He had trusted Rohan would respect his privacy, leaving the letter quite exposed. He hadn’t thought a girl would sneak into his room and might read it. 

Emma hadn’t wanted to read it. But it just lay there and it was short. Her eyes were drawn to the piece of paper, and she read the private letter.

_Dearest Jorick,_

_It could not believe my eyes when I read your latest letter. While you are a great best friend to myself and Rohan, I do not love you that way. I do not want to lose you as a friend and don’t want things to change, but if you bring this up again, to me or Rohan, we will have to cut all ties times with you. I do hope you can find happiness with someone you love as much as Rohan and I love one another. Please do not take this personally._

_With love,_

_Elinor de Courtois_

Emma’s eyes widened. She read it a second time, a third time, looked as closely as she could without touching it or moving it in any way.

Now, this was interesting. It may not help Paul or the others on the road, but this changed everything on her end. 

She gathered the information and noted the differences between the story she was told and what the letter had said. Elinor had loved Rohan. She’d intended to marry him and probably would not run away to a nunnery with these kind of plans.

And then there was the detail that nobody had communicated to her, either because they didn’t know or didn’t want to say.

That raised the uncomfortable question: what exactly had happened to Elinor, and what role did Jorick play?

Emma did not like the room anymore. She knew she could no longer trust Jorick. But he was a wizard, and she was rightfully scared he’d know she was lying to him, know she had learned about his affection for Elinor. Emma would never say Jorick was the vengeful type (especially in comparison with Rohan), but the letter had shaken her enough to doubt it. 

And in her desperation to know the truth, she figured that one of her only options was to have a conversation with the last person she’d thought she’d want to have one with.

She had to know what Rohan knew. She had to tell him what Jorick might have done. And the second instilled more fear and anxiety in her than the first.


	18. Superbia

The sun broke through the canopy, illuminating the path ahead. It wasn’t as pretty as the lighting in the paradise that had swallowed Ted, but it still was pleasant. It was all pleasant: the sunlight, the weather, the general atmosphere around them. 

It shouldn’t be that good after losing three friends. It should pour. There should be a storm raging overhead. Lightning could strike them and Paul would not have minded. At least it would temporarily distract him from the reality he found himself in.

It was quiet. Even when Ted had been with them and hadn’t spoken, they could still feel his presence, the energy he would usually bring to the table. He still huffed and puffed every now and then, making his presence known. Now that was gone, it seemed the world had grown quieter. Or did Ted’s presence make everything seem louder than it was?

Paul started to feel what the others must also be dealing with. The endless walking between obstacles and sins was getting old. He was getting hungry, his throat was dry and his legs could barely carry him anymore - if not because he was so tired, but because he could barely deal with the loss of Becky, Charlotte, and Ted, and he knew he’d cave if they lost anyone else.

They didn’t watch the time. They couldn’t - none of their technological devices worked in this world and Charlotte was the only one who wore a watch. Even so, time seemed to have gone faster, they must’ve lost track of it, or the distance between the doors and the next obstacle was considerably shorter, but they soon had reached their next destination, the next trial they would have to brace.

The road disappeared in the swamp ahead. Vegetation was sparse; the closest distance between a sickly tree and a random bush was about 20 yards. A thin mist hung close to the ground, which comprised of extremely uneven terrain that was exclusively mud and small bodies of water. Something stirred in these pools, and bubbles came up and popped on the surface, dispersing a foul smell.

Between the swamp and the group stood a colored statuette; a peacock, his eye-spotted tail on display, looking haughtily ahead, as if to ignore the scenery behind him. A lonely hawk sat on the sculpted tail and cawed at them. The group did not pay much attention to her, but to what must be the fourth obstacle - the fourth sin.

“So,” Tom said, “which sin is this supposed to represent?”

All eyes turned on Alice. She even perceived the hawk as tilting his head and staring at her, curious about her answer. 

“Based on what’s left…” she started, but eventually shook her head and shrugged. “Maybe it’s pride.”

“It could be,” Paul said. He had no idea anymore what else should follow after envy, lust, and whatever the fuck the doors corresponded with. 

“So we shouldn’t feel proud?” Bill asked nobody in particular.

“I’m not sure,” Alice specified, but that did not matter. Bill put a comforting hand on her shoulder as to comfort her, that it’s okay that she wasn’t sure. If it weren’t for her, they wouldn’t know there was a running theme between the obstacles and they may not prepare. Not that they could prepare; they barely even knew what was going on until it would unexpectedly strike them.

“I don’t like this,” Tom said, staring ahead. He stared at nothing in particular. Maybe he tried to see where it would end. The misty environment did not help him; it made it impossible to see how far the swamp stretched. 

“Neither do I,” Paul said. He spoke for Alice and Bill as well, “but we’ll have to cross it.”

CAW!

Everyone was startled. The hawk had made its presence clear - she had been nervously moving around on the statuette’s tail, but nobody was looking at her. Now everyone was paying attention to her.

“The bird’s loud, isn’t he?” Bill said, and Alice nodded.

“Look at that,” Tom then said, his attention going to the bird’s legs. Paul frowned and followed Tom’s gaze. At first, he couldn’t see what Tom was looking for, but then he caught a glimpse; something white, something that made it look like one of the bird’s legs was wider than the other one. And occasionally, the bird herself picked at it, though she seemed not to want to damage it.

“Is that…”

“A piece of paper,” Tom finished Paul’s sentence. He walked to the hawk, careful not to cross the artificial border of the swamp. The hawk willfully allowed Tom to free her from the message that had been bound around her leg. Paul’s mind went everywhere, taking few guesses to who wrote it, but taking many regarding the contents of this small piece of paper.

At long last, Tom had freed the hawk from the message. She cawed happily when it no longer dangled from her feet. She took off, leaving them all alone on the road again, with the message in Tom’s hand. Tom unfolded it and looked at it for a couple of seconds.

“What does it say?” Paul asked, curious about its contents. Tom handed Paul the paper.

“It’s for you,” he said.

Paul frowned - what did Tom mean? But Paul only needed to glance at the paper to recognize Emma’s handwriting and notice her name at the bottom.

He read it more than once while his heart nearly beat out of his chest. It felt good to read her words, to have been given this sign that she was alright. And the message itself was amazing as well.

“What does it say?” Bill asked. 

“Emma’s in the castle,” Paul answered. “And… I don’t know if I read this correctly, but if I reach it, we can all go home. With Becky, Ted, and Charlotte.”

It did not matter how Paul had interpreted it; his interpretation might as well have been the truth, especially when he looked at Alice and Bill’s reactions. Tom, who had superficially glanced at the piece of paper, was only shocked when he heard this. So shocked that he couldn’t move or think properly for a couple of seconds.

“Really?” he asked with a low voice. Paul looked at him and nodded.

“I guess so. Emma wrote that.” And so far, she was the only one who had informed them of anything that was going on. It was good to have this tidbit instead of having to guess what would happen if they reached the end. “Maybe they gave her more information.”

“What if it’s false?” Alice wondered out loud. 

“It can’t be.” Paul shook his head. “It… shouldn’t be.” Because if they had given Emma false information that she then went out of her way to give to Paul and the others, that was a low blow from the knight. Those who had entered this world should be allowed to go back. Ted, Charlotte, and Becky hadn’t died. Not that they could see, at least. They’d gone up in smoke. They had to be kept somewhere, out of sight until Paul and the others had arrived.

“Alright,” Tom then said. “Shall we continue, then?”

It probably was the message that had given Tom a more positive outlook on the situation, though Paul could not see him leave behind his cautious realist side.

“Okay,” Paul said, and he put the note away in one of his pockets as he watched the swamp ahead. 

The first step was already a disaster. His shoe sank into the mud until he found somewhat solid ground when the mud reached about halfway up to his knee. He pulled back, slowly, because going any faster might mean losing his shoe and he did not want to continue with just one shoe. 

Once he’d pulled it out and saw how much dirt and mud was left behind, leaving no other color than brown, he knew he already hated this place, and he did not want to go across it. Just gross.

Something in the distance growled. Or it was supposed to growl; it came from one of the pools, causing a plethora of surface bubbles to pop. Paul was scared shitless. He tried to calm himself down. This was just a coincidence, he told himself. That particular pool was… had some air bubbles that needed to reach to the surface and made a loud grumbling to scare them.

Or the monster lurking inside the swamp could sense just how nervous and grossed out Paul was and wanted to lash out, but couldn’t because Paul was outside of the boundaries of the swamp. 

Whatever the case, Paul was scared enough to stay in his place and not go inside there without a little encouragement. No such encouragement came, however. When it became apparent that Paul wouldn’t move, Tom took a breath and entered the swamp. His feet sank in the mud, but he took his time to break free and continue without any verbal complaint. Bill and Alice went in at the same time as Paul - hopefully, going together would diminish feeling so bad about this, as others were going through the same thing. Paul did try to stay clear of the ponds, afraid of what lurked there.

For what seemed like an eternity (which could not have been longer than ten minutes), nothing happened. At a steady pace, they made their way through the shallow bodies of water and the mud. Every now and again, some unknown object or plant would caress past Paul’s leg, and Paul would flinch because he hadn’t expected it and didn’t like it, but he was too focused and anxious to let this get to his mind. Once he’d think it was gross, or something equal, maybe the monster that was watching would lash out at him. He couldn’t be taken out; he had to be there for Emma. If he didn’t make it, 

Alice and Bill were struggling just as hard as Paul was, except they could still pull each other out of the mud and drag each other along. Paul could stay close to them, but he preferred to be on his own. He wouldn’t get any unwanted questions and could continue in peace.

Up ahead Tom trudged through the mud. He didn’t seem to have any trouble with it whatsoever. Of course he wouldn’t, Paul thought, he was a veteran. He probably had come across these kinds of situations before, when he served or in training. In hindsight, he looked like the perfect person who could finish this damn road. He had the build, the resilience, and anything else that Paul could think of. Tom was everything that Paul could not be, even on his best days. Tom was the perfect man, who seemingly couldn’t sin. He didn’t let himself go jealous, walked right through the garden as if the nymphs weren’t even there (though Becky’s demise might’ve helped there as well) and he immediately knew to choose the right door, distrusting paradise. Even now, this looked so easy on him. Like he wasn’t struggling, like Alice and Bill and Paul. He didn’t complain and made the right decisions. It’s like he was born to go down this road.

Paul was glad the envy-obstacle was the first one they’d gone through. If that was up next, Paul would have failed.

He looked back; Alice and Bill were still struggling behind him. Alice had exhausted herself trying to keep up with Tom and Paul and Bill. To his credit, Bill was trying to stay close to his daughter just in case she needed help. This seemed to be the case.

“C’mon, Alice!” Bill tried to encourage her, but she shook her head. She had stopped near one of the pools and put her hands on her knees - or at least above her knees, where it wasn’t yet too dirty. She shook her head.

“Give me a minute,” she told him. “Give me a minute.”

Bill seemed conflicted. He wanted to give his daughter some time to recover a bit of energy so she could go on - but on the other hand, he did not trust the swamp and he hated plowing through it as much as Alice did. Only she tried to keep those thoughts out of her mind whereas Bill couldn’t help but think them.

“I’m sorry, but we’ve got to keep moving,” Bill told her. “We gotta get out of this stupid, muddy, dirty marsh.”

Paul’s heart froze. From under his feet (or was it just in the soggy ground?) he felt a rumbling, something that moved towards Bill like a lion sneaking closer to its prey - except whatever resided in the swamp did not make it a secret who it was hunting.

“Bill!” Paul shouted at him. “Don’t say that! Don’t even think about it!”

Bill didn’t seem to notice what Paul had felt. 

“But it’s true,” he argued. “This is a—”

It happened too fast. The sentence ended in a scream. Something horrible, something they couldn’t see, was pulling Bill underwater. Bill tried to hold on to something, but that was virtually impossible. Allice shouted for him and eventually, Bill was dragged into the water.

Paul wanted to help but knew he couldn’t reach them in time. Tom, who also had noticed the commotion, was even further away.

Alice did not need to think twice. She jumped in behind her father, who was struggling to keep his head above the water and occasionally disappearing out of sight. Alice grabbed some branch lying around and started hitting the water, wherever she perceived the thing that was attacking her father would be. Bill fought back as well, though he had no weapon to defend himself with.

Paul could only see so much from the distance. He could see his head coming up from the water and see the splashes from Alice trying to hit the monster. Eventually, they crawled out of the pool and stumbled away from it. Alice fell over a couple of times, but she was fine. Bill was fine. Paul breathed in relief - they were okay. They beat the monster, or it left them alone as soon as those thoughts had been expelled from Bill’s mind.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Paul said when they’d reached him. He turned to Tom and noticed he’d come over to check up on them. Alice and Bill responded to his answers and then, they quickly continued as a group.

That was another deal-breaking difference between Paul and Tom. Paul just stood and watched, did not help. Tom would have rushed there to help.

Couldn’t this journey have started with Tom showing Emma the rings as an engagement gift for Becky? Then Paul wouldn’t have to feel so bad for being the one that has to make it to the end.

* * *

At last, the end was in sight. Careful not to think anything that might cause the monster to come out again, they fastened their pace. Some painfully slow minutes later, they ran when the ground underneath their feet was solid again. They never thought they’d be able to be so overjoyed to be able to walk on even ground. 

They paused, sat down, took a moment to catch their breaths. Crossing the swamp had not only been psychologically hard on them but physically hard as well. Paul looked back at the swamp, happy to have walked out of there. He wasn’t the only one.

“Thank God I’m out of there,” Bill said. Alice agreed with him.

“I’m never doing this again.”

While Tom and Paul only had a thick layer of mud on their pants and shoes, that only reached up as high as their knees, Bill and Alice looked worse. They’d jumped or were dragged into the unclear water, and if their heads hadn’t been submerged, so much had happened that their hair had gone wet nonetheless. They were properly soaked and small pieces of mud clung to their bodies and hair; Paul could count at least five of these small pieces in Alice’s hair, and to say she was unhappy with the entire situation was an understatement.

The swamp monster must’ve felt it, too. It growled from the swamp, sending a wave of dirty water their way. The water never landed on solid ground, as an invisible force field kept the water within the set swamp region. 

While it still frightened them and managed to get a general yelp out of most of them, it could no longer harm the group. Like the nymphs, they were confined, and it was unable to hurt them any more.

And Paul laughed.

They’d made it on the other side of an obstacle without losing anyone.

He might just have regained a little of his hope regarding the outcome of this journey.


	19. Rohan's story

Emma had waited patiently for Jorick and Rohan to finish their game of chess. It had taken longer than she’d thought it would, but eventually Jorick had won. In the end, only five pieces remained on the board, three of which belonged to Jorick. Rohan congratulated the winner of this game and Jorick nodded back. Then he turned around and walked out of the garden.

Emma thought he would come right towards her. She didn’t know there was a second entrance, one that wouldn’t lead to the central hall. That was a positive development - at least Jorick wouldn’t run into her. She wouldn’t have to explain to him that she wanted to talk to Rohan. As a bonus, Jorick wouldn’t be able to interrogate her. If he found out she’d been sneaking around in his room and found a letter from his master’s lover…

She needed to warn Rohan. She didn’t know how, but he deserved to know the man he’d been living with had probably been the cause of this mess. And if that meant she’d be yelled at, so be it. Though it terrified her, it needed to happen.

She pushed the door completely open and with feigned confidence, she walked towards Rohan, who was cleaning off the board. He saw her coming and frowned. It turns out neither of them expected that she would approach him.

“Hey,” Emma said, hoping that her voice didn’t quiver. 

“What are you doing here?” He asked. 

“I just wanted to talk,” she told him. 

Moments of silence followed. She tried to keep her head up high, but she had to admit this silence scared her. How could she know how to react if she had nothing to react to?

“I’ve been nothing but mean to you,” the count said. “And you still want to talk?”

Emma nodded, trying not to show her breathing out in relief. 

“Yeah. I wanted to ask you something. If you want to talk about it, of course.”

More silence followed, but this time it was limited to only seconds. Rohan was willing to talk to her if only to have someone else to talk to for a change.

“What do you want to know?” he asked her.

_Do you know about_ _Jorick_ _? Did you know he failed to make Elinor fall in love with him?_

But the question got stuck in her throat. These specific words in that order wouldn’t budge, out of fear for Jorick as well as Rohan’s wrath if he took it as her trying to put his friend in a bad light. But he was expecting something and the next best question came out of her mouth.

“Why does this exist?” She asked him and she glanced at the valley. “This place, this road… I just want to know why.”

Rohan frowned again and tilted his head. “Hasn’t Jorick filled you in?”

“I’d like to hear it from you, too,” she said. Hopefully, this did not indicate that she didn’t trust Jorick, or that he was hiding something. Which he was.

But Rohan must have mistaken her distress about Jorick for worry for Paul. He sat down at the chess table and looked at her as he told her his story.

“I was…” he paused. “There was a woman. She was beautiful. We did not like each other from the start, but our love grew. I never mistreated her and she always stayed faithful to me. We were going to be married after five years of knowing each other.” He seemed to be avoiding her gaze, or he was deeply in thought. Either way, he wasn’t really paying attention to Emma. “I stood at the altar when I heard she has joined a nunnery.”

Rohan shook his head to himself, taking a deep breath. Was he trying to suppress his anger? Had he been trying to cast that memory from his mind?

“I was angry. Furious. I wasn’t thinking straight and asked Jorick for a favor.” He turned his head - Emma first thought he’d look at her. Instead, he just watched the valley. “He created this world, at my request. If she would ever change her mind, she needed only to bring the rings to me after mastering all the obstacles. I’ve been waiting since.” 

By the end of the story, Emma started to feel sorry for him. He’d sounded regretful and saddened by the circumstances. The eternal waiting for something that wasn’t coming weighed down on him. 

“Is there a way to stop this?” Emma wondered. “To bring us home before Paul’s come?”

“No. There isn’t. Not until they arrive here,” Rohan said. 

Finally, he looked at her. There was sorrow in his eyes, as well as a hint of guilt - though Emma believed she was making that up. She’d like him to feel guilty, but that didn’t mean she should see that the first time he wasn’t looking at her like he was going to beat her up or worse.

“What is your name?” he asked her.

She waited for a few seconds. “Emma Perkins.”

Rohan nodded. “Emma Perkins, I owe you a big apology.” 

Emma blinked. “What?”

Out of everything that could've happened, out of everything he could’ve told her, this was not one of the things she was expecting.

“You and your friends were never supposed to be involved in this,” Rohan explained. “I had long given up hope that she would come. I could sense the energy of the rings on your other side of the arch… and I was disappointed when I didn’t see her.” He paused again, possibly looking for the right words. “The anger I’d felt - the anger I thought I’d conquered - was unjustified. I am deeply sorry for forcing your man and your friends to go down this road.”

“Thanks… I guess,” Emma said, unsure how to feel about it. She was glad to have been presented with this apology, but it didn’t change anything. She was still with him in the castle. Paul was still on the road, struggling to even make it as far as he had already made it.

“I do not expect you to forgive me,” Rohan continued. “You have every right to hate me.” 

That was good to know - though, at this point, Emma still felt sorry for him and the situation that he found himself in. If he hadn’t had anger management issues and wasn’t impulsive, this place may not have existed. Unless Jorick insisted - but what stake would he have in creating this world.

“What’s the importance of those rings?” Emma asked him. 

Rohan hadn’t expected Emma to ask another question. He’d believed she would walk away from him. Either way, he answered.

“I’m certain Jorick bewitched them as a part of this world. When me and my beloved wear our rings, we can leave and live our life together. This world will disappear as we go home.”

Home. It wouldn’t exist anymore. Unless they were going to return to the time they came from, Emma doubted their home as Rohan remembered it still existed. Maybe the castle remained, but it could be a ruin. And if it didn’t exist anymore, there may be a modern village on the grounds where once the castle stood. Emma sincerely hoped for their sake that they would go back to their own time.

“What will you do when she doesn’t come?” 

“Then I will ask Jorick to do the honorable thing and end my misery.” 

Rohan looked past her - his gaze was hollow, devoid of emotion. 

“I will give you some advice,” he continued in the same tone. “You do not wait when you are certain. I waited too long and she may have fallen out of love with me. When you are certain, you must take the initiative. Do not wait too long, or he might slip away from you.”

Emma nodded. She knew Paul - he’d be there for her, no matter what was going on. He gave her the space she needed, and he would still be there.

That’s what she would have thought before today. He presented her rings, made it look like he asked her to marry him (unintentionally, but still), and instead asked her to be his girlfriend. And doubt set in her mind. 

No. She and Paul haven’t been together as long as Rohan and Elinor had before the marriage. They hadn’t reached that point yet.

Still, Paul wasn’t like Elinor. Or most other people. And he’d let her know at certain points in time that he felt quite insecure about many things, and that some control of the situation or definitive certainty made him feel more at ease. And certainty wasn’t something that she had given him in terms of their relationship - because she feared the certainty he so desired. 

And what would he do? She already said no. How long could he live with the uncertainty before he decided he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Emma was taken out of her thoughts when the bird she’d gotten to know cawed. She looked at it and noticed the letter was gone. Had it fallen of? Had Paul received it? There was no way of knowing for sure.

Rohan did not like the hawk. He scowled at the bird and shooed it away. The bird stayed close - she wanted to stay close. Rohan threw a loose rock in her direction and the bird flew away. Emma watched in silence.

“It hasn’t done anything to you,” she said. Rohan shook his head.

“It laughed at me at the wedding,” he said. “It followed me and Jorick here to torment me.”

Emma frowned. “Okay…” 

Maybe she still had misjudged her. He proclaimed he’d let go of his anger, but the sight of the bird still made him furious. Maybe he really hated the bird; maybe he hated that she brought back the memory. Either way, he did not like that bird.

And now his attention was on the bird, Emma figured this was the right time to ask about Jorick. Then again, it never seemed to be the right time, but it was best to ask now that she was speaking with him than to try and approach him at another time again. 

“Do you trust Jorick?” She asked him out of the blue. He turned his head to her and stared. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so direct. Maybe she should have tried to introduce the question a little more. But she couldn’t take it back now. 

“With my life,” Rohan answered. “Why do you ask?”

Emma shook her head and smiled nervously. “No reason. I just… wanted to know how close you are.”

Rohan nodded hesitantly. If he ever suspected something wrong was going on, he didn’t think about it too much or just let it slide.

“Is that all you needed to know?” he then asked her.

“Yes,” Emma said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Rohan said.

Emma took this as her cue to leave. She nodded at Rohan one, then turned around and walked away, back to where she came from. She let out a deep breath and almost raced back to the room they had given her.

Why didn’t she say anything?

Because there still was some lingering anger she didn’t want to risk getting all over her. She didn’t want to be punished for bringing up a truth he did not know about. 

But hopefully, she’d find the courage to tell him.

Or to snatch the letter from Jorick’s desk so she could show Rohan.

Now, that was a better idea.


	20. Gula et Avaritia

There was one positive to this road: it curved upwards.

It wasn’t too noticeable at first, but after a while, they could no longer not notice it. They were walking uphill, while the road had always gone downhill. They were coming closer to the knight’s castle and now, they could feel it as well. 

Now they were going uphill, the forest around them had thinned. they could be going in any direction they wanted, but the road still ran right to the castle. At this point, they could even see it - only a mile or two, maybe a little more, away from them. They weren’t many other options to take but to go to the stone structure in the distance. 

The fact that the road (or its creator) trusted those who walked it more at this stage of the journey was the small house standing between the travelers and the castle. The road ran right through it, but they could go around the house as well.

As Paul, Tom, Bill, and Alice came closer, they could see the house was more of a small barn, with opened double doors where the road crossed it. They could see right through it if they came closer.

“Am I smelling chicken?” Bill asked.

Paul shook his head. That was impossible. They were just hungry, that’s all. Anything could smell like chicken here. Though now Bill had mentioned it, Paul could smell it, too, and his stomach grumbled.

He hoped clutching it would at least stop it from being so loud. It didn’t.

The barn was close now, only a couple more yards, and more details came. Atop the first doorpost was a sign that read “la Famille Dubois” and it was decorated with small carvings of boars and rats. They did not notice these, though, and barely even read the sign. What awaited them in the barn house was much more interesting than what could have warned them.

In the first have of the barn stood a table, one bench on the right side. A single lit candle set the mood; two servings of cooked chicken with an assortment of vegetables stood on the table, unevenly divided between two plates. The smallest plate stood at the side of the bench. After that followed an open-air wardrobe with dry and warm clothes, new boots and dresses, and suits for ladies and gentlemen alike.

They could barely believe his eyes and came to a full stop out of shock. All they could do was stare. A feast and dry clothes. That was too good to be true. Way too good.

Bill’s stomach rumbled.

“I’m taking the chicken!” Bill then shouted, half-running to the shed.

“Leave some for me,” Paul shouted, not having the energy to run as well.

“I’m going for the clothes,” Alice announced. She quickly passed her father and made it to the house at first.

Paul grinned. Finally some good luck!

“This is great,” Paul said. Tom, who walked next to him, shook his head. Paul didn’t think too much of it - Tom may be too shocked to talk. Which was understandable.

The father and daughter had reached the house. Bill sat down on the bench and started to greedily eat from the chicken, cutting off large chunks with the knife and stuffing it in his mouth. Alice cheered when she stood in front of the displayed clothing, checking out what she would try out and change into first.

“I said, leave some for me,” Paul told Bill. Bill shook his head.

“You can take from the other plate,” Bill told him. “This is mine.”

That was a good point. Maybe he would do that. 

Paul stopped right beside Bill. Tom, on the other hand, did not spare a single glance at the chicken or the clothes. He passed through the house without slowing down for even a moment, and he waited on the other side, safely in the open air.

“Tom!” Paul called out. “Don’t you want anything?”

“I don’t trust this,” Tom told them. “Don’t you?” 

Paul blankly stared at him. What did Tom mean?

“What?”

“Please tell me you can see this isn’t right,” Tom said. His tone was pleading. Paul frowned. For such a large man, he seemed so small with his arms folded and a sorry look in his eyes. He didn’t look at Alice or Bill but had his gaze, those penetrating intense eyes, trained on Paul, to the point he was feeling uncomfortable. 

Paul looked away from Tom and looked at the table. Bill sat on the bench and was shoving the meal into his mouth with the provided fork and knife. Paul stood on the other side of the table and started to really look.

Paul frowned. Only Bill’s side was fully equipped. He had a place to sit, he had the necessary cutlery. On Paul’s side, the plate was bigger and the food looked better, but that was about it. 

He turned his head to look at the dry clothes section, where Alice was sitting on a bench and untied her shoes, so she could put on a nice pair of boots that hadn’t suffered the effects of the swamp. And his eyes fell on the variety of clothes that were on display. There were some dresses and jackets, but the majority of the clothes were new pairs of pants, some skirts, and many boots of different types and sizes. 

And Paul looked at Tom again. Tom’s demeanor hadn’t changed at all. It was as if he was begging for Paul to make that connection.

But why didn’t Tom just say something, then? Why didn’t he explain it?

He did not need to say anything. While Paul was staring at Tom, he could see how Alice went up in a puff of smoke. The boot she’d just put on her foot fell with a thud.

Paul, who hadn’t seen this coming, jumped back and let out a yelp.

And then his mind went into overdrive. He still had no idea why Tom hadn’t tried to warn them at the very least, but at least Paul’s eyes were opened. Anything inside the barn was toxic, could make them vanish - and it already had. 

It was such a cruel trick. This was the end of the road. The castle was in sight. They were tired and often thirsty and hungry. After four obstacles, the last of which left you even more exhausted than you were before, the creator of this road thought it would be a good idea to provide food and clothes, means to take a breather, and turned it into the next thing they had to overcome. There was nothing worse than having to leave behind some much-needed food and wanted clothes because they could be the death of you, after having gone through so much trouble before.

They deserved to have this. The road provided it, with a deadly twist.

And Bill was still eating.

“Bill?” Paul said in a higher-pitched, panicky tone. “Haven’t you had enough?”

Bill hadn’t looked up from the plate. He’d almost finished the entire meal. “No, I haven’t.”

“Bill, please,” Paul pressed on. He leaned forward. “You need to stop eating now.”

“I can’t stop it, Paul.”

“But—”

“I can’t.” Bill shoved the second to last bite in his mouth and looked at his colleague from work. Tears streamed over his cheeks as he chewed. Paul almost started to cry himself.

Bill swallowed. “I can’t help myself. I can’t stop it.”

His hand reached out for the last bite, a small piece of chicken he hadn’t eaten yet. He was shaking from head to toe. If he tried to stall himself, it did not show.

“I’m sorry,” Bill said between sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

“Bill…”

The fork was in front of his mouth now. “I’m sorry.”

He took the last bite. He could swallow it almost immediately. Not a second later, the fork fell on the table. 

Paul leaned back, looking at the bench where Bill just sat. Tears formed in his eyes. Bill…

With great effort, Paul took his eyes off of that spot. He looked ahead instead, to the other side of the barn house, where Tom - that bastard! - was waiting for him. It couldn’t have taken him more than ten seconds to get out of the house, but each step seemed to take an eternity. Time slowed down around him; each step came down with what he perceived to be a loud thud, the time between steps perceived as minutes.

The sun was still shining. It warmed his skin and dried the tears on his cheeks when he had left the house. Paul looked up at it, for as long as it was possible.

How did it still shine?

“Paul…”

How could he continue now?

Only when Tom put a hand on his shoulder, he realized how heavy he felt.

He sank through his knees and one thought prevailed.

_I can’t do this._

* * *

Tom was worried about Paul.

Before this happened, Tom did not even really care about him - mostly because he didn’t know Paul all that well and had nothing to care about. Although this journey had improved their bond - as was usual when you survived dangerous situations together - it was outweighed by the bad experiences.

Now Paul had fallen to his knees and he didn’t seem to want to get up. Tom could understand it, but this wasn’t the right time to do so.

“Paul, are you okay?” Tom asked him. 

Paul shook his head, the tears still chained his cheek. “I can’t.”

Tom frowned. “What?”

“I can’t do this, Tom. I can’t go on.”

Well, shit.

“You can,” Tom said, trying to put all his empathy in his voice. “You’ve gotta—”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Paul then shouted at him. Tom took a step back, to give him the physical space he needed. “Why didn’t you—? The food and clothes…”

“I did,” Tom said calmly. 

Paul looked at Emma’s brother-in-law, confused. “What?”

“I did,” Tom repeated. “Nobody listened. And once you stayed with them in there…” 

He looked away from Paul. They had been walking right next to one another. He’d tried to tell Paul not to fall for it, but Paul hadn’t heard. He thought Paul was ignoring him, that gluttony and greed had already overtaken his mind as it had overtaken Alice and Bill, beyond saving. 

“I considered leaving you behind,” Tom continued. “I thought you were too far gone. I’m so glad I was wrong.”

The prospect of going to the end alone, however short the journey may still be, had been terrifying. The relationship between him and Emma had never been too great, and the past few months had been exceptionally good. Tim wanted to know his aunt and Tom was glad to get to know her, too. 

Having to face her on his own, being the last and only member of their party to take a step over the castle’s threshold, he already knew he would not be able to look him in the eye.

“You should go,” Tom told him. Paul looked at him and noticed that Tom wasn’t joking. Did he genuinely, really mean that? No, it had to be a mistake. This was just Tom trying to convince Paul.

“I can’t go on, Tom,” Paul said. “I can’t— I’m not the guy who finishes this.”

“Yes, you are,” Tom said intensely and Paul started to feel uncomfortable around him. What was a good reason for Tom to keep him around? He’d do better without Paul around, he’d do better on his own.

“Don’t you get it?” Paul asked him quietly. “It’s gotta be you.”

“If it is gonna be me, you’re going to be by my side,” Tom responded.

Paul shook his head. _No._ “I am only holding you back.”

Tom sighed. He had no time for this attitude. He had no time to argue with Paul while Emma was sitting at about a mile from them, while the way home was literally within reach. And Paul suddenly felt so bad about himself, he was speaking without saying anything and he couldn’t or didn’t want to get up.

“Look, what do you want to say?” Tom asked. 

“That you’re the one who’s gonna win this,” Paul answered. Wasn’t that clear before? Maybe it truly wasn’t, but Paul couldn’t see that. Not while he was in this state. “You’re… You’re great for this. You chose the right door from the beginning. You walked past those pretty people. You marched through the swamp as if it were nothing and you walked right past everything in there. I couldn’t even see this was a trap.”

“You weren’t supposed to,” Tom said, glancing at the house. The doors had closed on their own, blocking their access to food and clothes - the poisoned gifts of the road. It was probably better that way. “We weren’t supposed to.”

“How did you know it wasn’t right?” Paul asked him. He was the only one who hadn’t been tricked. It was too good to be true - if it had been at the beginning of the journey, it would not have been nearly as effective as it had been.

“I didn’t,” Tom answered truthfully. “I saw the house with the castle in the background. I’d rather reach the castle on an empty stomach and in dirty clothes than fall for a trick and not make it at all.”

Paul shook his head; not in disbelief about Tom this time, but because of his own incompetence. “I should’ve seen it,” he said. “Nothing’s what it seems here. I should have seen it.”

Tom placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “But you didn’t, and that’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I’m—”

“Paul.” He stopped when Tom used that strict tone of voice, that commanded him to shut up and stop putting him down. “You are not going to feel sorry for yourself, okay? You are going to get up and you’re going with me to the castle. You’re not giving up.”

Still, Paul wasn’t feeling it. 

“But—”

“It’s right there!” Tom pointed ahead. Paul could see it, too. The sun wasn’t setting yet, but it illuminated the castle. It hit the castle at the right angle, presenting a nice view from their position. The stone structure looked impressive and beautiful, though Paul could not acknowledge the latter.

“That’s where Emma is. It isn’t too far anymore,” Tom said. He lowered his arm and looked at Paul. For a couple of moments, they did not “If you’re going to look at everything I’ve overcome, then you’ll have to see you went through the same shit. You’ve come too close to the end goal to just give up. For all we know, they could see us. Emma could see you and wonder why you’re not getting up.”

Paul looked from Tom at the castle, frowning. From this distance, he couldn’t see if any windows were built with a view of the barn house. Could they even see Paul and Tom from these windows, if they existed?

But the thought was too tempting. He looked at Tom.

“Really?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Tom admitted to his new friend. “But I’m damn proud of what we’ve accomplished and we’re not giving up. Okay?” 

He looked expectantly at Paul, who could only stare back at him in silence. “Okay, Paul?”

Paul nodded.

“Okay. I’m not giving up.”

He did not know whether he meant it. He did not know if he said it because Tom made him believe in it again or because he did not want to argue with Tom anymore. Either way, Paul made a good impression. 

“Good,” Tom said. He extended his hand. After a second, Paul took the hand and stood up.

He caught a glimpse of the closed doors of the house. There was no going in, no going back. His eyes were locked on the door; behind that door, Alice and Bill had been turned to dust. 

“We’re getting them back,” Tom said encouragingly. “Your letter said so. We’ll see them soon enough.”

“I hope so,” Paul said.

Then, they turned their backs on the house and made their way to the castle.


	21. Getting close

Compared to the horrendous journey that lad lead them to this point, the short walk to the castle was easy, uphill, and filled with hope. They were at the end; the castle came closer and grew bigger with each step. Paul had to hold back to stop himself from running right towards it. He bit his tongue so he wouldn’t go shouting Emma’s name over and over again, as it wouldn’t do anything. Maybe they couldn’t just leave with her, maybe they had to earn her back.

He sincerely hoped they wouldn’t have to earn her back. He’d been through too much shit today, he did not have the energy to do anything specific to win her back. He didn’t even believe he could handle it mentally. 

The road became more clear. It was no longer a dirt trail they had to follow; it turned into a cobblestone road, that was eventually flanked by walls. It was as if this world was rewarding them by showing that they had indeed reached the end by creating some sort of funnel towards the castle.

On one hand, it was great. On the other, it was kind of strange. On the walls hung decorative shields, all depicting different banners that must belong to different lords - lords the knight may have known, or just their banners. Each one had a different combination of two main colors, with an item or an animal depicted on the fabric. This was too much detail for Paul to take everything else in about these colorful, fear-inducing banners. Which one belonged to the knight? Did that knight even have one?

“Hey, Paul,” Tom said. 

Paul had to turn around. Tom had fallen behind and Paul hadn’t noticed, being too engrossed by the banners. That wasn’t why Paul was a little shocked. Tom had found two swords, its steel glistening in the sun as if it were brand new. If that was what brand new swords looked like. Tom walked towards him, holding both swords, and Paul had no idea what he should think about the situation Tom presented.

“Here,” Tom said, holding one of the swords towards Paul, so he could take it. “We’re gonna need this.”

There was no denying that. They still had no idea what would be waiting for them in the castle. Paul frowned at the weapons and then looked at Tom with a confused look in his eyes.

“Where did you get that?”

“From over there,” He pointed to the piece of the wall he’d stood before. Paul had completely glossed over it; Paul had been attracted to the colorful banners whereas Tom had noticed the stone lion’s head on the wall. The two swords had been crossed and placed beneath it, something Paul could only see because the stone wall was significantly lighter in color where the swords had hung.

“Did you break it off?” Paul asked.

“It wasn’t even fully attached to it,” Tom said. “Now, take it.”

Paul could not refuse such a request, especially since it was the second time Tom told him to. He was afraid to grab the sword, afraid of the possible side-effects. He had learned to trust nothing in this world, and that included the swords that might protect them from the enemy in the castle.

The sword was heavier than Paul first thought it would be. He had no idea how he should hold it. He tried it in several ways, with the sharp end up and down, even resting on his shoulder, but he couldn’t make it feel comfortable in his hand. 

“And we’re sure this is safe?” Paul wondered. As far as he knew, neither of them were very proficient with a sword, while their opponent would have had a millennium or so to perfect his skills. At this point, Paul was worried that he might accidentally hurt Tom with this, and a little less about Tom hitting Paul by accident. 

“So long as we don’t stab each other, I don’t see why it’s a problem,” Tom responded. “That knight’s going to have a sword on him, so why shouldn’t we? If he doesn’t want to give us Emma back, we can put him under pressure with these.”

Paul frowned. “By hurting him?”

But Tom shook his head, and Paul breathed in relief. Luckily, he had just misunderstood Tom. “Intimidation might be good enough. If it comes to that, I’ll do the talking.” He then nodded confidently at Paul. “Let’s get this over with.”

Paul nodded back at him with renewed energy. They were going to do this, even though he wasn’t too sure about the swords still. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

Together they continued the last hundred yards to the castle’s entrance. Paul no longer watched the banners, but his focus was on the knight. They were silent, and the only thing Paul could think of was Emma, and how the knight used Paul and put him through nearly literal hell for his entertainment. Paul did not have much time to think about the knight as they were on the road, but now they were so close, he could no longer ignore it.

He hated the knight. And oddly enough, he started to look forward to seeing him and demanding to get Emma back. 

Sooner than Paul realized, they found the entrance. It wasn’t what he expected. He expected to see a moat around the castle, with a wooden drawbridge. In his imagination, this drawbridge was drawn up and denied them access. In reality, there was no moat and no drawbridge. There was a paved road leading into the main plaza of the castle, with no reinforcements to be seen. Why would this even be reinforced if he was the only one here? there probably weren’t any locks on the door, either.

If the knight refused Paul access to Emma, he’d wish there were locks on the doors. 

Tom and Paul stood on the ground and looked around. They could not see anyone in the windows, there was nobody to draw the attention off. A double door, made of dark wood and richly decorated, stood open at just a crack. Tom silently pointed it out and Paul nodded.

They were certain they were going to find their knight inside. They were going to punish him for his crimes and for everything he put them and their friends through. 

Tom and Paul pushed the door open and marched in like they owned the place. Their eyes were on the man who waited for them inside the large hall. Strangely enough, he was smiling. He seemed not to be intimidated at all by the swords - he seemed to be relaxed. And that grin… Paul imagined the knight had just laughed at their misery and must be concocting some plan to bring them down. Paul wasn’t going to let that happen, and neither was Tom.

“Welcome, gentlemen,” the knight said calmly. He had a soothing voice, but Paul wasn’t going to fall for that trap. “Congratulations. You are the only ones who have made it this far.”

 _Really?_ Paul thought, irritated at this statement. _Now, whose fault was that?_ How many more people had suffered because this man did not like true love or whatever sadistic reason he had for the creation of this cruel road? Paul despised him.

Tom reacted before Paul had the chance. He stepped forward, pointing the sword at Rohan. It was close enough to be threatening, but far enough not to hurt him yet. Rohan glanced at the tip and smiled again. Was this all a joke to him?

“Where is she?” Tom snarled at him. Rohan did not immediately answer, though, reveling at the moment. When Tom pushed the blade further towards Rohan, the knight simply leaned back a little.

“You need to be more specific,” he said, not taking his eyes off of the duo.

“What do you mean?” Paul asked him. Again, he did not immediately answer, which only added to both Paul and Tom’s irritation. “When we finish this road, we get her back.”

Rohan could not deny this. He nodded in agreement. 

“Those who lose their loved ones and finish the road will get them back,” Rohan said affirmatively, his eyes on Paul. Why wouldn’t he just point them to where he kept Emma? “But you are not the only one who fits that criteria.”

The knight’s gaze shifted from Paul to Tom. Paul looked at his new friend; he must be shocked and confused as well. Tom locked eyes with Paul, as they silently tried to figure out what this would mean. Tom lowered the sword. For a brief moment, they forgot their anger.

“The rules of this world are clear. However, I can only give away one person per party,” Rohan said, with a sly grin on his face - a grin neither Tom nor Paul saw, as they still only looked at each other. Though they didn’t notice, Rohan enjoyed the moment. 

“It is now completely in your hands,” he continued. “Who will you bring home with you: Emma or Becky?”


	22. Confession

Right before Emma had her conversation with Rohan, Jorick had returned to his room. Emma had almost entered it without realizing it. Luckily, she could hear that Jorick was inside his room. Emma decided to hide out around a corner and wait for Jorick to leave, so she could grab the evidence and return it to Rohan.

And as she waited, she was left to her own mind. Thoughts swirled in her mind, her legs restless. She couldn’t wait until this whole thing was over. She wouldn’t wait for Paul to come and rescue her. She was not a damsel in distress and this little adventure provided enough distraction from the reality of the situation not to panic too much. In these quiet moments, however, she couldn’t help but think about the absurdity of this world.

Paul knew nothing about it. He just walked the road and hoped for the best. Emma knew what was going on - or at least, she believed she did. 

This world was too crazy for words… It existed because a knight got angry. After all, his lover hadn’t shown up at the altar. She hadn’t shown up because the knight’s best friend and wizard had turned her into a bird for not accepting his love for her. As the friends went to this world, the lover as a bird quickly joins them and now all three are trapped, with only two of them knowing what had really happened - one could not speak, as she was the bird, and the other refused to talk about it. And the knight, who did not know the full truth, believed it was his fault he lost her because he waited too long.

If you could see her before this journey started and told her this, Emma would have laughed and called you crazy. But now, this was the reality she lived in. 

She was in luck when not much later, Jorick left his room. She hid behind the wall so that he wouldn’t see that she had been spying on him. She tried to stay as quiet as possible, hoping that Jorick wouldn’t see her standing just around the corner. He did not; in fact, he went the other direction, his steps echoing through the halls. Emma forced herself to slowly count to ten before looking around the corner again.

Jorick had left the hall, giving Emma the freedom to go to his room and break in again. Though, it wasn’t really ‘breaking in’. He hadn’t locked the door - he did not have a lock and key or did not suspect anyone would break in. He had not noticed someone had already come into the room when he was away.

This simple fact gave Emma the confidence she needed to enter his room.

She needed the letter, which lay on the desk still. She could always pick that up, but there was something more specific she was looking for.

If she remembered correctly, Rohan had ordered that Jorick would keep the rings safe. Jorick probably would not carry them around, so they had to be somewhere in this room. 

But there was a lot in this room. One full wall of bookcases, other storage units, a cauldron, a desk as well as a bed. There were too many spaces to hide something - more than enough for Emma not to know where to start.

So she pulled open the drawers of the desk. Of course, they were not in there - that would be too obvious. So Emma continued her search, looking at every little nook and crevice she could find, every obvious and non-obvious hiding spot, hoping to find the rings. 

And there they were, hidden away behind a couple of books. She almost shouted in excitement but restrained herself. She couldn’t risk being found out. Not now. She took the rings and quickly put them in her pocket, putting the books back in their place. She had what she had been looking for - now she just needed to take the letter and show it to Rohan.

Fortunately, she knew where this letter was - where it had always been, on the desk. She stood up, walked over to the desk, and picked up the piece of paper. When she looked at it, however, she knew something was seriously wrong.

This was not the letter. This was a random note, probably from Jorick himself, from one of his early days in this world. This was not the letter.

Where was the letter? And how did Jorick know what she was planning?

Emma pulled open the drawers of the desk again, frantically looking for the letter. Maybe he’d put it away; maybe she hadn’t seen it because she’d been looking for something else. They were not in the drawers, and Emma started to panic.

“Are you looking for something?”

Emma almost jumped in fear and she turned around. In the doorway stood Jorick, calmer than she had ever seen him, with a folded piece of paper in his hands. The letter.

Emma knew there was no time for excuses, for hollow words. He’d caught her red-handed, he held the letter, he must know that she was aware of what he had done. The one saving grace was that Emma had the rings. He hopefully hadn’t seen her take those. He hopefully didn’t know she was planning to use them.

“I know what you did,” she boldly proclaimed. “I’m going to tell him.” 

“He won’t believe you,” Jorick said. Emma knew there was a chance, but she wasn’t going to let that bring her down. In the end, if she had to shove his ring in Rohan’s hand to make him realize, she’d do it.

“If he reads that letter, he’ll know soon enough what kind of an asshole you are.”

Jorick glanced at the letter before he looked at Emma again. His gaze was cold.

“This letter can break up our friendship. But it does not prove what you think it does,” Jorick told her. “Rohan knows me as a peaceful man who wouldn’t hurt anyone intentionally. Someone who uses his magic very carefully and sparingly. He will find something else to focus on.” 

Somewhere in there, Emma caught the nuance. She caught the confession that he would never voice otherwise - but which he, in a moment of confidence, of arrogance, implicitly made clear to the one person who may be able to break the status quo.

“So you did turn her into a bird!” Emma said accusingly. Jorick nodded, smiling briefly.

“Yes, I did,” he said. “I’ll admit it. I only didn’t plan for her to come to this world.”

Emma blinked - she had not expected him to say it so plainly. It was all the better for her, yet all the scarier. He was arrogant enough to believe saying it out loud had little or no consequences. He believed too much in himself and his ability to keep this hidden.

Now, it was a matter of getting more information out of him and stall for time, until she figured out how to snatch the letter from him and bring it to Rohan, as well as everything Jorick told her here.

“Is that why you are here?” Emma then asked. “Because of Elinor?”

“Because of Rohan,” Jorick responded. “He commanded that I came with, and I obeyed.”

Emma imagined the situation; Jorick being pressured by a furious Rohan to come along with him to this world, and Jorick possibly being too afraid to refuse. Or maybe he was too loyal to Rohan.

Not, he couldn’t be loyal. If he were, he may not have tried to steal his friend’s fiancée.

“So you would have stayed home.” 

“I would have won her over,” Jorick specified, “with Rohan off in his own world, it would be possible. It would have taken time, but we’d be happy.”

Emma had a feeling this would not be the case. She knew nothing about Elinor, but she was certain that she would be extremely unhappy with a husband or even a boyfriend like Jorick, who wouldn’t even realize she would have tried everything to get back to Rohan - even braving the road Paul now was walking on. 

“She would never be happy with you,” Emma told him. She glanced at the paper in his hands. Could she grab it without tearing it and run? “Not after what you’ve done to her.” No, that would be too risky. She couldn’t risk the paper tearing at the wrong place. 

Either way, she had said something wrong. She should not have pointed out the reality when Jorick was happy to settle for the fantasy he had conjured up. His neutral expression became a frown, but he did not lose his calm demeanor. Emma would have preferred if he started to blow up like Rohan. 

“You don’t know that,” he said, the animosity audible in his low voice. “There is a lot you do not know.”

“Such as?” Emma asked defiantly. Jorick answered in a monotone.

“Paul is dead.”

She wished she hadn’t asked. She lost her breath and her face must have gone pale. Her heart seemed to stop - no. No, this couldn’t be true, right?

Right?

“What?”

Jorick shrugged at her, not showing how glad he was that she bought it. He, of course, had no idea about how things were going on the road. For all he knew, Paul had gone up in smoke and others were still making their way here. Either way, his confidence translated perfectly and Emma fell for it. 

“He’s gone,” Jorick continued at the same time. “He was just… too hungry to continue. Ate himself to death.”

Emma shook her head.

“You’re lying.” Paul wasn’t a glutton. He wouldn’t eat himself to death, even if he was hungry. He was cautious enough not to take any food offered in this world at face-value and eat (at least, Emma hoped so). Hell, back home, he wouldn’t say if he wanted another portion of whatever they were having because… Emma couldn’t say why, but he must have a good reason for it and she never asked. 

“I don’t have a reason to lie,” Jorick told her. “He is gone. And now he’s gone… well…” he sighed dramatically. “I believe it’s time for you to go home.”

For a split-second, Emma was confused and had no idea what he was trying to say, especially after he dropped that bomb on her. But when he lifted his hands and started to chant something in Latin or old French or something, she realized what he was doing.

In the next split-second, she dashed forward and planted her knee in his private parts. He hadn’t seen it coming; he believed Emma to be so in shock that she would not be able to do something like this. The women he must have known, or the memories of these women must have been meek figures who did everything he said and backed away at the sight of his cold gaze. 

But Emma wasn’t like those people. Emma was a modern woman who stood up for herself when she truly was in danger, not afraid to hurt someone who was threatening her. With one strike, she brought Jorick to his knees and incapacitated him, while he groaned in pain.

“He’s not dead,” Emma told him. 

She quickly reached for the letter. Jorick had brought his hands to his crotch, holding it tight as well as the letter. Emma tried to pry it from his hands, but when she noticed it started to tear, she let it go. 

Okay. He had the letter.

She didn’t need it. Of course, it would have been better if she did, but she had the rings. She could save the situation and bring Elinor and Rohan back together without first explaining herself. 

It may not work.

But it also may work, and that was a chance she had to be willing to take.

Emma ran out of the wizard’s room and hoped he would still be in the garden. And if he weren’t there, she wished she would find him before Jorick did.


	23. Ira

“So what will it be?” Rohan asked Tom and Paul. “Emma or Becky?”

Paul and Tom glanced at one another. They had walked into the castle, expecting the knight, expecting him to stand there with a drawn sword, ready to fight. They were fully happy to kick his butt as a team. They were more than pissed off at the man to maybe kill him as well, though you couldn’t say until the moment was there. But Rohan had indeed waited for them, without a sword, and giving them a ridiculous proposition. Something that hit Paul hard enough to forget his anger for a moment.

“Can you give us a minute?” Paul asked the knight, glaring at him. The fury was still present. The knight nodded.

“Of course,” he said.

Paul turned to Tom, who did not or did not want to understand Paul’s decision to wait to give that answer. 

“Why do you want to discuss this?” Tom said - he did not agree with this. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

Paul nodded. “I know. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page, okay? We’re picking Emma.”

Tom’s gaze changed instantly. The anger had first been directed solely towards the knight standing in front of them, but after that comment - that all-encompassing, be-all-end-all comment that Tom hadn’t verbally agreed with yet - he could not honestly say he didn’t also hate Paul a little.

“What?” It was low, so low that Paul almost hadn’t heard it. But he did, and his anger now shifted towards Tom. 

“We are going to choose Emma,” Paul said slowly, cautiously. Before he had even spoken all the words, he knew Tom would disagree. This was not the plan. Why couldn’t Tom stick to their plan? 

“I choose Becky,” Tom responded. 

“Are you kidding me?” Paul said, glaring at Tom the same way Tom was glaring back at him. “It was the original plan to come here, for Emma. We’re sticking with it.”

Tom’s grip on the sword tightened. 

“I won’t,” he said. “You created this mess, we all followed you to help you with this fuck-up. The very least you can do is give me this.” 

“And because _I_ created this fuck-up,” Paul raised his voice, “I say we choose Emma. We will be able to go home.”

Adrenaline flowed through his veins, it was a thrill to shout. He wanted to punch Tom’s face so badly. The one thought that restrained him was that Emma could see him, and he did not want to make their relationship any worse. Punching her brother-in-law might do that. But damn, would it feel good. He deserved it.

“You hear that?” Rohan joined the conversation. “He wants to leave Becky behind.”

Paul turned to Rohan and used his sword to point threateningly at the knight. Rohan must have thought the situation was amusing since there was a smile on his face.

“You shut up,” Paul told the knight. “That not what I said!”

Rohan nodded once, and Paul turned his attention begrudgingly back to Tom. He hadn’t calmed down; neither had Paul. 

“We’re not leaving without Becky,” Tom said.

We? _We_ are not leaving anyone behind. Paul did not even wish he could say they had discussed Emma’s note and that it probably was true. He did not remind Tom of this, either. If Tom were so vehemently choosing for his significant other, Paul would do the same, even if he actually had a good reason to do so, and Tom was just thinking with his heart.

“I’m not going anywhere without Emma.”

At the same time, Tom could not believe the audacity of Paul. He had been at fault, bringing them here unnecessarily. He must have told Ted to get the others for him because he certainly wouldn’t choose out of free will to do this on his own. He probably was conspiring with Emma as well, one way or another. Paul had learned through his life, it was about him. Now he needed to be taught this was not the case.

“Wanna fight me over it?” Tom then asked. Paul couldn’t be happier than in the following moment, though he showed nothing to Tom.

“Let’s do it,” Paul said. Tom also did not show how overjoyed he was.

“Really?”

“Yeah!” Paul shouted. He was ready. He was more than ready. This would be great.

Tom nodded. “All right.”

He immediately pushed Paul, who stumbled backward and fell. He landed on the cold ground and barely broke the fall. To land without hurting himself too much, he had to drop the sword in his hands.

And as he sat on the ground, with the sword only inches from him, his glare on Tom, his clouded mind started to clear up and he wondered why he got angry in the first place. And he wondered why Tom was so worked up.

Had Paul, too, been that furious? The glare in Tom’s eyes was so fierce, so destructive, that Paul feared for his life. He had heard that anger could consume you, and it had happened to Tom. It had happened to Paul.

“That was just the beginning,” Tom said.

Paul tried to figure out where they went wrong, what had happened to them to make them furious. He first went back to different obstacles and counted them. Up until the swamp, three. Four with the swamp. Six with what happened in the barn house.

They were missing one. They had fallen for the seventh sin, the one they hadn’t had, probably anger. 

But Paul had been angry, too. How did he not go up in smoke yet? How was Tom still so furious without disappearing before his eyes? Maybe he needed to do something, or want to do something, or come close to doing that something. Maybe there was a timer on it: angry for so many minutes and then poof.

“Tom…”

But Tom wasn’t listening. He came up to Paul, the sword in his hand a hundred times more threatening now Paul had none.

Paul reached out for the sword beside him.

He hesitated.

The swords. That had to be the cause. Paul hadn’t seen them, but Tom had, underneath a lion’s head - animal statues or carvings had always announced shit was about to go down. And Paul had only started to become furious when he held that sword in his hand. He was taken out of it when he lost it. 

Tom had to let go of the sword. In his state, it would be impossible to convince him to do so. 

“That’s it, Tom,” Rohan said, egging him on. “Fight for your woman.”

“Wait, hold up, Tom, no!” Paul responded. He stood up - he was glad he got to his feet before Tom started the attack. He was glad he didn’t look as afraid as he felt. “You don’t want to do this.”

Tom shook his head. “I really do.”

Tom lashed out. He swung the sword at Paul, who had to dodge it. This was the moment where Paul became utterly terrified of Tom. His friend, his girlfriend’s brother-in-law was out of his mind. He swung the sword to hurt, to kill. He was not holding back. The only weapon Paul could use to protect himself was the sword that would consume him.

So he could only run, and Tom followed him around.

It must have been downright entertaining for the knight - he remained in the middle of the room, watching the scene unfold with mild amusement. Paul ran around trying to stay out of Tom’s hands while Tom relentlessly chased Paul like a bull. Paul climbed over and under the tables, threw tall and unused chandeliers towards Tom, but they provided little to no help. He gained a couple of seconds which he would lose later when he stumbled over his feet.

Paul was backed into a corner while Tom approached, slowly. He had no plans of making this quick for Paul or himself; if Paul was going to suffer, it needed to happen slowly. Paul saw a chance. 

“Why don’t you just… put down your sword and we can talk this out. Like friends?”

Maybe Tom would listen. Maybe this would make him see reason, that this anger was just all bullshit. Maybe he would put the sword down.

But it was wishful thinking. 

“Why don’t you pick up that sword and fight me like a man?”

Tom charged at Paul, who dodged the sword and lept to the left. 

“No, thanks,” he responded, and the chase continued. 

After a while, this repetitive dance started to weigh down on Paul. The adrenaline wasn’t wearing off, but he did get tired. He stumbled far more than at the beginning of the chase and he was so certain he was going to die that he was starting to despair. This was not going great at all, and there was nothing he could do to stop Tom, who did not seem to run out of energy at all. 

“Paul!”

There she was; the woman who could stop him in his tracks; the woman who could make him forget everything else in the world, even in dangerous situations; the woman he had fought so hard for to see again. There she was, just as astonished to see him as he was to see her.

“Emma?”

Tom punched Paul’s stomach twice. Paul doubled over; Tom quickly pushed him to the ground. Paul was now at Tom’s mercy. He managed to lay on his back and tried to crawl away, but he hit the wall. There was no place he could go, no place he could flee to. Tom would stop him at every angle and towered over Paul, the sword glistening in the sun. 

“Finish him,” Rohan said. 

“No!” Emma shouted.

“Tom,” Paul tried one last time in a pleading voice, “please don’t.”

Tom lifted the sword for the finishing blow.

“This is going to hurt.”

Paul defensively lifted an arm as a shield, turned his head, and closed his eyes, waiting for the sword to pierce through him. The seconds felt like eternities, and when nothing happened within these seconds, he slowly opened one eye.

Tom wasn’t there anymore. Paul was just in time to see some of the smoke from Tom when he was vaporized. The sword fell and clattered on the ground.

And Paul let out a long breath of relief and trembled from head to toe.

* * *

“No!”

Emma couldn’t bear to see it. 

The last conversation she had made her doubt. Now, she was absolutely certain that Rohan either was a monster or doing this purely because he still hadn’t gotten over Elinor. It was time to change that. 

She may not be able to help Tom or save Paul. She had no idea what they were fighting about or why Tom wanted to kill Paul. She did hope they would be fine and instead focused her attention on Rohan, who followed the fight.

“Take this,” Emma told him. Rohan hadn’t heard her approach him, though her cries had alerted him that she had entered the room. He looked to his right, where Emma was standing, and frowned.

“What are you—”

Emma shoved the ring into his hand. He was too confused about the situation to fight back or give her the ring back. At this point, he was still trying to figure out where she got the rings from, and if Jorick had something to do with it.

Emma looked around the room. Rohan was in here, so Elinor couldn’t be too far away.

CAW!

There she was! She sat near a window, peeking in to see what the commotion was about. 

“God, I hope this works,” Emma muttered to herself. Then, she shouted, so Elinor could hear. “Catch!”

Emma threw the remaining ring into the air, as high as she could. Elinor reacted immediately; she spread her wings and flew through the room, towards the ring. Time seemed to slow down as everyone in the room, apart from Paul and Tom, watched the bird extend her claws and reach for the ring.

She caught it.


	24. Doorway

It was a strange but majestic sight. The bird flew down to the ground and caught the shiny ring mid-air. Just before she landed, the bird transformed into a puff of white smoke. Once that cleared, a woman stood in the bird’s place.

She was in every aspect conventionally beautiful. Long, wavy dark hair; a beautiful smile that turned into a grin; hazel eyes that lit up when she finally could see the love of her life again. The blue dress fit her perfectly, and Rohan incredulously looked up and down at her.

“Elinor?” Even at a whisper, the name echoed through the room. Elinor grinned even wider.

“Hi, Rohan.”

Rohan approached Elinor, while Elinor ran towards him. They met in the middle and embraced one another, hugging each other tightly. They were not going to let go so quickly, not after years, decades, centuries of separation. 

And while they held each other for the first time in centuries, Emma ran towards the trembling Paul. In the last seconds, a lot - too much - has happened. Tom was just about to kill him, before he disappeared. He went from fearing for his life to mourning Tom and seeing Emma again and being completely surprised that the bird turned into a beautiful woman (though he still much preferred Emma). That was a lot of emotions in a span of only seconds, and Paul definitely needed some support, if not a little help.

“Hey,” Paul said, a smile on his face, and he and Emma hugged as Elinor and Rohan did. Theirs was shorter, though.

“Are you okay?” Emma asked him, breaking out of the hug.

“I’m not,” Paul said truthfully. “Can you, er…” He extended his hand to her.

"Yeah.” Emma took the hand and helped him to get up on his feet. He needed a little support from her — no doubt his stomach still hurt from the massive punch and his legs trembled - but he remained on his feet. Still, he did not let go of Emma. Until they finally left this world, he wouldn’t let go.

“Thanks,” Paul said. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Emma responded and they grinned at each other like two idiot friends who just realized they fell in love. They were just so glad to have the other back, to make and end to this rather unnecessary adventure.

In the meantime, Rohan and Elinor were overjoyed to be with each other again. But while Elinor knew what happened, Rohan still had a lot of questions.

“How are you here?” He quietly asked her, taking her hands and not taking his eyes off of hers. “What happened to you?” 

“Jorick turned me into the bird,” she said.

Rohan had not expected this answer. He figured some magician had to be involved - people do not just turn into birds - but it would never have crossed his mind that Jorick would be responsible, let alone involved. He could barely wrap his head around the idea that his best friend would do something to hurt her.

“What?”

“He loves me, too, but I don’t love him back,” Elinor explained to him. “He was furious I was marrying you instead of him. He wanted to lock you here, alone, waiting. I couldn’t bear to let you brave this on your own.”

Many emotions flashed across his face, of which disbelief, anger, disappointment were only a few. Though most prevalent was the betrayal and the guilt.

“All this time, I didn’t know…” Rohan began, but Elinor interrupted him.

“Don’t be sorry. You couldn’t know,” she told him. “But you could apologize to them.”

Rohan followed Elinor’s gaze and looked at Emma and Paul. The two were looking back, unsure about what would happen next. Emma had been safe in his castle, but Paul and his friends had gone through something Rohan would not be able to finish, something he shouldn’t have brought into existence through Jorick.

How had he ever believed that Elinor would be able to prove her love through this? How had he believed that being strong enough to survive the mental horror of this would prove just how much someone loved someone else? It was rash and foolish and no words could express everything he wanted about this world, created in a time of rage and grief, that Jorick had made a reality. 

But he had to say something.

“I’m sorry for everything you went through.” He primarily addressed Paul, for Emma only had the worry of wondering whether Paul would make it whereas Paul made the journey. Still, both could see the guilt in his eyes. “This road... it wasn’t meant for you. It never was. I am truly sorry.”

It was weird to see how compassionate and guilt-ridden the knight could be when it wasn’t hidden under a thick layer of animosity and anger. Paul, at first, was not wiling to forgive him for everything that happened. Neither was Emma, though she was more likely to accept it.

“What happened to our friends?” she asked him, before Paul could go ranting about everything that had happened to him. It was in his right, but they still needed to know two things before she would allow Paul to do what he definitely needed before he could move on.

“I never wanted collateral damage,” Rohan said. “Your friends will be waiting for you at home, unharmed.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, and they were both glad to see their friends again when they would go home. 

“But, how do we go home?” Paul then asked. He could not see how they would be going home, or whether the knight would escort them back to the beginning - but that would be too convoluted, wouldn’t it?

“You will go through that doorway,” Elinor said, and she pointed to a door that neither Emma nor Paul had paid attention to. It was a normal old wooden door at the end of the room, completely opened, and in the doorway swirled a familiar purple portal. Emma was certain it hadn’t been there before. Maybe it was triggered, set to appear when Elinor and Rohan would be reunited, or maybe it just escaped her attention all this time. Either way, they had a way home now.

“It is similar to the one you used to come here, but you should arrive back where you came from,” Rohan added. Though the tentative language implied he, too, had no idea how this worked, Elinor supported him as if she knew exactly what was going on. It was likely that she did, she might have been captured by Jorick earlier, or she listened in to his mutterings and took in as much information as she could, which now came in handy. 

“What will happen to you now?” Emma asked. Were they going home as well? Were they going to kick Jorick’s ass? Were they going to stay in this castle together, where time would not be able to harm them and they could literally stay until the end of time? Anything was possible.

“We’re going home, too,” Rohan said. 

“When he leaves, this world will be sealed off,” Elinor added. “You will return home, as will we. But when Rohan steps through the portal, it will disappear.”

“And you’ll leave Jorick here,” Emma said. Rohan nodded, and a glimpse of his former anger showed on his face again. The betrayal of his friend was too much for him. Enough to leave him in the world he created, first as a way to get rid of a rival, now as a prison he could not escape from.

“It serves him right,” Rohan said with all the bitterness that he could muster. 

Paul wanted to comment on it. Something along the lines of ‘was it that bad?’. But even if it weren’t, this felt so bad it might as well have been. He didn’t need to create such a convoluted way for Elinor to 'prove her love', not even if Rohan asked. He didn’t need to make it accessible to just anyone, but he made it so. This was all his making.

“After you,” Elinor said to the reunited couple. “Thank you and good luck with everything.”

“Thanks,” Emma responded. “You, too.”

Paul took Emma’s hand.

“Let’s leave this hell-hole,” Paul whispered in her ear.

“Fuck yes,” Emma said in the same low voice. Together, they walked to the portal and without hesitation, finally together again, stepped through.


	25. Home again

From inside the castle in broad daylight, into the darkness of the forest at a wedding arch. The cool evening breeze brushed against their faces and Paul and Emma smiled. Paul looked behind him - the purple portal shrunk and disappeared out of their sight. The portal was closed, as Rohan said it would.

They were home. And someone was waiting for them.

“You’re back!” Bill exclaimed. He’d been standing around the arch, walking about. He had been there when Tom came through the portal, just minutes ago. Tom was present as well, but he greeted them with a nod, letting Bill do all of the physical stuff.

“Bill!” Paul said in relief. He stepped towards his friend and they briefly hugged each other.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Bill said. Paul nodded at him.

“I’m good,” he said, “how are you?”

Bill shook his head, but there was a smile on his face nonetheless. “I am _never_ eating that much again.”

At least he could laugh with it, and so Paul was able to smile about it himself. He was just glad he was able to still be around Bill. 

Then Paul turned his attention on the other person that had waited for them. The only other person that walked the road in its entirety and who unfortunately succumbed to the last sin. Only because of a cruel twist of fate, Paul had let go of his sword. He could only imagine what would’ve happened if he held on to it. Would they both have disappeared? Would one of them still be declared the victor?

But now Tom stood in front of him, hands in his pockets and a guilty look in his eyes. 

“Tom,” Paul said, not an ounce of animosity in his voice. Tom, as a way of greeting, nodded back at him.

“Look, I want to apologize,” Tom said. “I shouldn’t have tried to…”

“I know,” Paul said, interrupting his new friend. “It wasn’t you. It was a cruel trick of that wizard.” Tom nodded, though he did not know anything of a wizard. Still, after seeing the knight and knowing everything that had happened, it wasn’t hard to believe that a wizard was involved in this whole mess.

“How’s Tim?” Paul then asked. 

Tom smiled. He didn’t think Paul had remembered that Tim was left on his own, or that he would care to ask how the kid was doing.

“He’s fine,” Tom said. “Becky went to him straight away after she arrived back here. She’s been checking in here every hour. Everyone else is back at our camping spot, with Tim, who is none the wiser about what happened.”

Paul nodded. It might be best if they didn’t tell him what was going on. He already lost his mother. If this had turned out any different way, Tim would have lost everyone he cared about. It was best to spare him that thought and to make him believe nothing had happened. Everyone else would know better.

“Why is it still dark?” Emma wondered out loud. Paul hadn’t noticed before, but now that she mentioned it, it indeed was still dark. Just as dark as it had been when Paul first ran through the portal. Had time not moved at all?

“We think that time goes faster in that world,” Bill said. Paul frowned in response. Was that even possible?

“It’s been three hours since we left Hatchetfield,” Tom added. 

“No way,” Paul said. “Three hours?” He instinctively reached in his pocket to grab his phone. He was glad it was there now - it had not been there for the duration of his stay in the other world. He was glad he didn’t have it on him in the marshland. He unlocked his phone and looked at the time: 2:34 AM. He looked up and saw that Tom nodded.

“Three hours Hatchetfield time,” he said. He, too, couldn’t believe it when he first came back, but now there was no denying it. Still, it was fun to see the confused look on Paul’s face. “I’m sure we’ve spent many more in that other world.”

They must have. Paul felt like they spent eight hours, maybe ten or twelve, in this other world. He could not give any more specific time frame, mostly because he had no way of telling time and could impossibly give an accurate time frame. 

But they were home. Paul shouldn’t think about this any longer than was necessary. He never thought he’d be so happy to be back on the grounds of the Hatchetfield Nature Reserve, but he was glad to be back. Glad things could settle again and go back to normal.

But there was one more thing he needed to do. 

Paul turned to Bill. “Can Emma and I have a private moment?”

Emma turned her head to Paul, a confused look on his face, but quickly let it go. She needed to say something to him, as well, and it might be easier to do without any audience.

“Sure thing,” Bill responded. Tom agreed with it.

“We’ll catch up with you,” Paul told the man.

“We’ll be waiting down the path,” Tom said. After the events of today, he wanted to return to the camping place as a team of four instead of in duos. He did not want to unnecessarily worry those who were at the tents by coming alone when they’d said they wouldn’t be coming back without Emma and Paul.

Paul turned to Emma when Bill and Tom had turned around the corner of the road. They were not completely out of sight, as the forest wasn’t that thick, but they were far enough for their conversation to be private.

Okay. Paul took a deep breath and gathered all his courage. Even after everything that had happened, he still wasn’t brave enough to just start a conversation about a touchy, emotional subject.

“Emma.”

“Paul?”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to be my ‘girlfriend’,” Paul said with a heavy heart. His desire to have Emma accept the label had almost cost them and their friends their lives. He believed she would associate these events with the question, and he thought it would be better to take his distance for a while.

Emma was left speechless. She remained silent for a while, blinking a couple of times, before attempting to communicate with Paul.

“Paul…”

“I get it, it’s okay,” Paul continued as if he hadn’t heard Emma. “I understand if you need more space or more time or both.”

“Paul—”

“I mean, it’s not easy, but if that is what you need—”

“Paul!” Emma raised her voice and Paul was silenced at last. Dread could be seen on his face; why had she interrupted him? During the pause, his anxiety slowly rose. His nerves were calmed when Emma tenderly took his hands and lovingly looked him in his eyes. “I would _love_ to be your girlfriend.”

It took a while before the words were processed. But when he realized what their meaning was, seconds after he recovered from the initial shock, he could barely produce words.

“I… Officially?” No, he probably had misheard. But Emma nodded. She’d held Paul off for too long - she didn’t think she’d take the knight’s advice, but she also did not want to lose Paul because she feared the label. 

“Officially,” Emma repeated. “Title and all.”

“Really?” Paul said. He had not expected this at all and had no idea what to do in this situation. He froze and could only wonder out loud whether this was truly happening or if he was dreaming.

“Are you going to keep asking or accept it?” Emma asked. Paul chose the latter, though he could not verbalize this. Instead, maybe to show her how he felt about her, maybe to seal the deal, maybe to answer without saying words, he leaned in closer and kissed her. 

It was amazing. He’d wanted to do it ever since he saw Emma again, in the castle, and she had wanted it, too. These long, loving kisses were rare - quick pecks on the lips and cheeks and heads were more common for their relationship - but after the separation and trials, it was the only way Paul could show his love and gratitude to his cute little barista.

This moment could have lasted forever. If it were up to Paul, it would have lasted forever. But all good things come to an end, and Emma pulled away after a series of long kisses and looked at him. She, too, hadn’t wanted the moment to end like this.

“Let’s not keep Tom and Bill waiting,” Emma said.

Oh yeah. They weren’t alone.

Paul nodded. They could still kiss and possibly make out later. But for now, he was content to hold her hand, to join Tom and Bill and then return to their friends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story all the way through. I appreciate your support and I hope you liked it.


End file.
